


Completely Out of Hand

by tothefairest



Series: Completely Out of Hand [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Self-Insert, Slow Build, Sorry Not Sorry, Unreliable Narrator, but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2018-12-03 13:22:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 36,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11533104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tothefairest/pseuds/tothefairest
Summary: (Inspired by the 'Modern Girl in Thedas' trope.)When a (yet to be revealed) magical mishap dumps a girl from our world into the MCU, what will happen?Friendship, Romance, Timeline Meddling, and passing moments of Crack await.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an entirely self-indulgent piece of work that I am only posting because I thought maybe someone else out there might enjoy it even a fraction as much as I do. 
> 
> At the rate I'm producing it now I should be updating it weekly-ish. Editing it isn't nearly as fun as writing it though, so no promises.
> 
> If you like it yay, if you hate it, oh well.
> 
> I used the self-insert tag even though the main character isn't much like me at all. She has my first name, and my sense of humor. 
> 
> That's about it.

**In life, there are plenty of things that just never turn out to be as bad as you think they will. Final Exams, Dentist Appointments...Breakups (usually).**

**Unfortunately, there are a lot of things that also are as bad as you might think. Some are worse. And occasionally, very very rarely, something you think would be great. Something you dreamed about one day happening -- might turn out to be the most terrifying thing to ever happen to you.**

**So...** let’s start here:

_“Ow- fuck! What the hell?”_

_“Holy sh-- Jarvis, did a girl just fall through my ceiling or am I having a psychotic break?”_

\----------------------------------

A sensible person might be thinking that I would be properly prepared for this moment. I had certainly fantasized about it (although personally I would have planned a more graceful entrance). Or that I might be freaking out, worrying about where the hell I was or how I had gotten here (or perhaps if here was even real?) or even if I was injured too badly.

But no, apparently it is in fact true what they say about shock: it’s a helluva drug. Because as I sat there staring at _Tony Fucking Stark,_ real and in-the-flesh as far as I could tell, all I could think of were things like ‘oh, I don’t have a bra on’ and ‘it smells kind of gross in here’ and ‘oh hey look, that’s a real fucking hologram, yessir’. 

“--y, you! Yes you. Ceiling Lady” Oh, whoops. Tony -- Er-- (Mr. Stark, Iron Man? What on earth do you call someone that you know so well and not at all? ) was trying to get my attention. Rather rudely too, what with the snapping and the waving. _‘Well,’_ I tried to console myself, _‘at least he’s taking this seriously’_.

“Care to explain yourself?” 

And, hey, he seemed remarkably at ease for someone who was probably just as surprised by this as I was (ok, maybe not _just_ as surprised). But if the bags under his eyes and the three empty coffee cups I was looking at were anything to go by, maybe he was just as unsure about the real-ness of this moment as I was. I mean, he wasn’t calling the other Avengers, or locking down the building, or even putting on the armor. He was just kind of….looking at me, eyes wide and eyebrows raised almost comically. And oh boy, where to even start….

‘Oh don’t worry about it I’m only from a world where you don’t really exist and btw none of this is probably even really happening because I’m having some sort of vivid hallucination which raises all sorts of other questions but…’

Yea, I probably shouldn’t lead with that… 

But he wasn’t done, and whatever this was it felt real and it wasn’t going away. Treating it like it wasn’t happening or not taking it seriously would only turn what could otherwise be a pleasant experience into a nightmare. I could only play along, and hope that if I was catatonic and drooling into my pillow into the real world that someone would find me and get me to a hospital sometime soon. 

“All this stuff yours?” He made a vague gesture to the floor behind me and I turned around to see the floor peppered with pieces of my clothes, a pillow, my comforter and just barely peaking out from under it: my phone. All scattered as if it had fallen through a hole in the floor of the room above.. Or more likely, if I knew my comic books, some sort of weird dimensional portal. But there was nothing there now. 

I opened my mouth to say something, to start explaining at least a little bit but found myself almost entirely at a loss. Should I say I’m from the future? I could show him my cell phone and maybe get away with that...but this world had more advanced tech than my own. Thanks in large part to the man sitting dumbstruck in front of me right now. Whatever year we were in, they probably already had phones better than the one I was using.

It was probably broken after the fall anyways.

So that wouldn’t work. 

_Bwip!_

The sudden noise practically right next to my ear scared me clumsily to my feet in a second. 

And, oh, _ow._ Standing up hurt. My entire butt was going to be a bruise tomorrow, but Dummy scared the shit out of me. He was surprisingly stealthy for a machine his size, I hadn’t even heard him moving around behind me. But apparently he had found something of interest because he was now rolling excitedly towards Tony with his claw out offering --

“Hey, that’s my wallet!”

“You invade my lab, I invade your privacy.” he quipped effortlessly as he shuffled through my cards. Seeming for all the world like he was unbothered by our situation. I guess I was kind of unthreatening, especially for a superhero. Still, he had to be faking how well he was taking this...at least somewhat. No one was that unfazed by the supernatural. 

“So, these are fake.” I almost groaned aloud. I was hoping he wouldn’t notice the dates on...what? My credit cards, a receipt? “2017 huh? Tell me, how is the future?”

And….well, there’s a lot I could say to that. Really. I could probably write an essay, or fill a notebook with sassy comebacks but none of those things were going to get me out of this situation. In fact, if I didn’t start speaking up and making myself an asset instead of a threat. I was probably going to end up in SHIELD custody. Or out on the streets.

Not sure which of those options I found less appealing. To be completely honest. 

“Where I’m from isn’t the future. As far as that’s concerned let’s just say I’m not in Kansas anymore.”

Tony started to open his mouth, probably to tell me I was insane or to ask a question about what I meant, but I powered through. I needed to get this out. It wasn’t going to sound less crazy the longer I let it sit. 

“The real question is what’s _your_ future. Listen, I don’t know _when_ I am in your life. But I know what’s going to happen to you and a lot of it isn’t good. Just let me prove that I’m not lying. Tell me what year it is, what’s going on in your life right now and I’ll tell you what comes next. Or...or something private. Something I couldn’t _possibly_ know.”

Short, concise….ish. Something I knew I could back up, something I _wanted_ to back up if he’d give me the chance. Real or not I could prevent some tragedies while I was here. It would practically be a crime not to. 

Aaand, he wasn’t saying anything. Just watching me, the most intense look slowly taking over his face. Making me squirm in my goddamn pajamas. It was like I was a puzzle, a problem someone had presented to him that he just couldn’t find a solution to. 

I tried to wait, I tried to be patient. But having the full scrutiny of a genius like Tony Stark focused on you is a rather singularly unnerving experience. 

“Dummy, You, Butterfingers.” I pointed, naming the bots. I had no idea if anyone else knew their names, but I couldn’t imagine it went further than Pepper and Rhodey if so. “That thing in your chest is a miniaturized arc reactor that you created to replace the car battery that was keeping the shrapnel out of your heart. Yinsen set the original device up, saved your life. He didn’t make it out of the cave when you escaped in the original Iron Man suit--”

“Ok -- ok, I get it. Give me a minute here.” He closed his eyes and took a couple deep breaths, looked like he was fighting off a panic attack almost...but I hadn’t said anything…

Oh. Oh _no._

“Jarvis. What year is it?”

“Two thousand and ten, miss.”

I took a good look around. Really _looked._

This was Malibu. There was no Iron Man suit in sight. A couple blueprints for what looking like the flight stabilizers were up on one of the far screens.

_Holy. shit._ 2010\. 

Tony wasn’t even Iron Man yet. 

And I might have just given him a panic attack my reminding him of his time in captivity, the blank stare and pallid skin certainly weren’t promising. 

“Jarvis, can you help out? Talk to him. Tell him everything is ok.”

“Sir. It is July 25th, 2010, we are in Malibu. You are safe. The weather is 91 degrees and slightly cloudy…” 

It was working. Jarvis continued to list off random facts and Tony’s expressing was clearing. Color was coming back into his cheeks and he was blinking rapidly as if it could clear the images from behind his eyes.

“Sorry, I thought….I didn’t realize it had happened so recently.” 

Another ten, maybe thirty seconds passed before Tony wiped a tired hand over his eyes and sighed heavily. 

“No. Why would you. You’re a time traveler from what, another universe? Of course you are. Because this is my life.”

He sounded, well, he sounded like he believed it. At least. Not like he was thrilled though. More like he thought this was some sort of karmic punishment. 

“You know what, I can’t. I can’t do this right now. I haven’t slept in almost three days and _you._ ” Tony pointed accusatory at me, wiggling his finger in a way that was almost comical. Probably was, except I was worried. Genuinely worried about the man in front of me and the unhinged red-tinge to his eyes.

“ **You** are a stress induced hallucination that Jarvis is playing along with because...because…” He threw his hands up as if that finished the thought and then wiped them manically on his jeans. “Fine, you’re real. But unless you know something important that’s going to happen in the next few hours I’m not dealing with this when I can’t even think straight.”

He was already waving away screens and heading for the door. He couldn’t be serious. Nobody in the world would call it a day after being offered information like that. There was so much to discuss….and, well, where the hell was I supposed to go? 

“Come on. You can’t stay here unsupervised.” Tony was standing by the door, gesturing to the stairs as if I was just supposed to follow along. Obviously.

“What about my stuff?” I gestured to the entire rooms-full of my shit scattered across the lab floor. 

Tony just shrugged, like it wasn’t even something to be worried about. “I’ll send someone by to clean it up later, probably Pepper. I’ve asked her to do weirder things.” 

I scurried over to pick up my phone. Tossing my comforter over and kicking aside a few clothes quickly to see if I could find my charger, or blessed be, my laptop. No such luck, and I heard an impatient grunt behind me so I hurried my act up. 

“Won’t she wonder where all this shit came from?” 

An unconcerned shrug was the only answer. Weird, very weird. He was talking about Pepper as if she was still just his PA….wasn’t he supposed to have feelings for her by this point? He didn’t seem concerned at all about what she thought he was up to. Or even about making her do a ton of menial physical labor. 

“Jarvis, direct our resident oracle to one of the guest rooms and monitor her closely.”

He was practically running up the stairs away from me, and it was only now that I regretted not also grabbing a change of clothes from the floor, since I was still braless in my pajamas and forced to awkwardly hold my chest as I hurried to follow him. 

“So what do I do?” I called after him, “wait around to be summoned tomorrow morning?” hell, I didn’t even know if it was night right now. For all I knew it was 7 am, Tony sure as hell didn’t have any sort of normal sleeping schedule. 

He didn’t answer, and I had a sense of when I was being stonewalled so I allowed him to disappear around a corner and stopped to take a look around. This house was almost obscenely beautiful, I wondered if I could get away with taking a little look around before I got locked away for god knows how many hours. 

“If you’ll follow the hallway to your left I will direct you to your room.” 

Apparently not. Oh well. I’d get to see it later? Maybe. If I didn’t just wake up back in my bedroom thinking about the crazy dream I had. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The guestroom was predictably extravagant, but I could not have cared less. I toyed briefly with the notion of trying to get to sleep, but let's be real I was way too keyed up. Who wouldn't be? Alternate universe and all… Not to mention meeting an actual goddamn fictional character. Real, and in the flesh. I mean, people freaked out over going to see fake Diagon Alley at Disneyland. This was like that on steroids.

So I didn't sleep, probably couldn't if I tried. Instead I just looked, not really taking in my surroundings, but trying to find the cracks. If this wasn't real, I felt sure there would be a sign, some way to tell. Something about this had to be slightly off. But everything I touched was solid, text was legible, not a damn thing out of place. It checked out. 

Not really sure if that's good or bad news. 

My phone wasn't working. No visible cracks on it but it must have either broken in the fall, lost it's charge, or hey, maybe it just doesn't work anymore by the rules of this reality… Or something. I already know there's a bunch of sciency stuff here that doesn't exist on my world, not to mention the actual goddamn magic. Who's to say the technology that made my phone work back home would even function here. 

Or seriously, maybe it just lost it's charge.

Whatever the case, my life may have gone Topsy-turvy in the last few hours, and I was anxious as hell about seeing To-- Mr. Stark again tomorrow. But right now, with hours of nothingness between me and that minefield of a conversation...I was somehow managing to be bored.

It didn't really seem like it should be possible, given the peculiarity of my situation… But it turns out if you lock a girl in a room with nothing to do, she gets a little twitchy, regardless of her current dimension of residence. 

“Jarvis?” And let me tell you, even knowing something is there to hear you doesn't make one feel any less mental when addressing an empty room “Can I talk to you or do I not have the right… permissions, or whatever?”

“I am programmed to assist all of Mr. Starks guests. However I have been given several restrictions when it comes to you, in particular.”

Ok. That's fine. I can work with that. I was half expecting no response at all so this was good. Surreal. But good.

“This might be a crazy ask but can you just… Talk to me about something? It's getting kind of stale in here. No offense.”

“None taken. However, perhaps you would prefer to watch some television? Shall I put something on for you?” 

Ok. I definitely hadn't seen a TV in here. Where was it hiding? Was it going to rise out of the floor or something insane? 

I gave a nod and sat back on the (amazingly comfortable) bed and couldn’t help the slight wave of awe that washed over me as what appeared to be CNN started playing in mid air on the far wall. Sure, I had known holograms were a functioning technology here, I’d even seen a few working interfaces down in the lab. This was different though, full color and so vibrant. Real, there one second where it had only been bare walls before.

So fucking cool.

It immediately made me think of that scene towards the beginning of the Avengers when ---

“CNN’s own Anna Burke caught up with Mr. Stane outside of the Malibu office to ask him about his thoughts on the company's new direction.”

I felt like my stomach had dropped out from under me, certain I was going to be sick. The scene--the image-- of Tony slowly dying on his lab floor sans arc reactor flashing through my head. 

_God._ Stane. The scumbag, murderous piece of shit. What the fuck was I thinking just letting Tony leave me like that. Obadiah was his _friend,_ practically a _father figure,_ he could call or text or fucking come by the house at any time and here I was just letting Tony go on thinking this man was on his side. That he _hadn’t tried to have him fucking killed._

How could I have thought that was ok? 

Through the haze of adrenaline now pumping through me I finally noticed there was no more droning voice in the background, the TV screen has once again become a wall. I, of course, had been too busy staring off into space while building up a healthy rage to notice. 

“Jarvis?”

“You were in distress, I determined the newscast to be the source, my protocols--”

“Yea, I get it, Thanks.” 

I couldn’t sit still. I had to tell Tony, I knew that now. I couldn’t wait till morning, till tomorrow, till _whenever_ he felt like he could handle having that conversation with me. This wasn’t a thing that could wait, hell, once he knew he would understand. He would have to. I even knew where the evidence was and if we went at night….

Wait, _shit._ Where was that office located? Was it in a building Tony would have keys or some sort of security access too?

Damn. Never would have thought I would regret not watching more superhero movies. 

“Jarvis, what time is it?”

“7:45pm, it has been four hours and thirteen minutes since you arrived.”

Less time than I thought. But it would be closing time now if not soon for a normal office. I could talk to Tony and we could do it tonight. Three or so hours of sleep would just have to be enough.

“Jarvis I need you to wake up Tony for me. I never should have let him leave, some of the things I know are too important to wait.”

“Mr. Stark has asked not to be disturbed.”

Ok, don’t know what I was expecting. But I knew Jarvis, he wasn’t just some computer program, he cared about Tony, and he could be reasoned with.

“Jarvis, you know Tony better than anyone. I know he said he didn’t care unless something was going to happen soon...but his abduction wasn’t an accident. Someone set him up to be taken by the Ten Rings and I shouldn’t have just let that lie. Tony deserves to see the man responsible behind bars.”

_‘Or dead.’_ I thought. But no, dead was too good. Stane deserved the media circus. The trial, the prolonged several life sentences in a supermax prison. 

“You are referring to Mr. Stane?”

My clear shock must have shown on my face because Jarvis continued without prompting.

“You showed a stereotypical fear response to his image on the television. His appearance also prompted this conversation.”

And, wow. I would have expected Jarvis to sound...disbelieving, shocked? Any of the emotions I was expecting to have to field from Tony. Instead he just seemed to accept it. 

“You realize of course that mister Stark will not believe you without proof?”

“I have proof...or at least I know where to find some.”

The silence in the room was all the prompting I was going to get. Clearly I had piqued Jarvis’ interest, but it was just as clear that he wasn’t going to do anything to help me unless I gave him _all_ of the information. 

“Everything you would need to put him away is in the mainframe at the SI offices. The folder it’s in is called sector 16 I think, but it’s gotta be pretty protected. The way Tony would have gotten it is with this weird little hacking usb device, he sent… _sends_ Pepper in with it. But I don’t think we should let him see the files. There’s some videos there of him in captivity. It isn’t good.”

No response. No response at all. 

Did Jarvis even need time to think things over? Was he processing or something? I had no idea, but the silence was heavy and strange and I was starting to get anxious about it. 

“Is there anything else?” Finally, he spoke again. Just as I was getting ready to ask if he was even still there. 

“Nothing criminal, I don’t think. Right now he should be mostly just trying to get the board on his side to block out Tony….”

I let my voice trail off as I searched my brain for more information. I knew there were a lot of people out there that had weird theories that Stane was involved in Howard’s murder or was somehow tied to Hydra but as far as I was aware those were just fan theories. 

Silence. 

More silence.

“Jarvis?”

“Miss Potts is currently speaking with all reachable board members, though preliminary results confirm your claims. Mister Hogan, meanwhile, is on his way to SI where I will personally guide him through the retrieval of all data needed. Mister Starks legal team as well as the police are also on standby.”

Ok. Wow. That was fast, and efficient. 

Here I was expecting to go on a midnight spy mission. Felt kind of stupid now.

“What about To- Mr. Stark?”

“Sir will remain undisturbed for now.”

It didn’t sit right with me still. Keeping Tony out of the loop, but it wasn’t like there was anything I could do. Jarvis’ word was final. Though he seemed to sense my disapproval, since he elaborated further.

“While I am often given what some may call ‘wiggle room’ in my interpretations, direct orders cannot be disobeyed. Sir has asked not to be disturbed, so unless any of my emergency protocols are triggered, I’m afraid I cannot wake him.” 

“So, we wait?” I sighed, curling up around a pillow on the bed and trying my hardest not to count the seconds that passed while I was waiting for news. Failing miserably.

After what seemed like ages, Jarvis began playing soft music, probably to help me relax.

After even longer, I fell asleep. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I awoke to the jarring tones of an alarm and the dulcet tones of Jarvis informing me that Obadiah Stane had been arrested at his residence early this morning. 

Also that there was coffee ready in the kitchen.

“I thought I was confined to my room?”

“My exact instructions were to _‘show you to your room and watch over you closely’_. And while I am sure Mr. Stark meant them in the spirit of confinement, I am now sure you mean us no harm. And therefore am taking a more liberal interpretation.”

I laughed and couldn’t help but feel a sense of pure joy that I had Jarvis actually on my side now. At least enough to smudge his orders. 

“I get it, and since you’re installed in the whole house, you can watch me just as easily in the kitchen, is that it?”

 

“Of course.” 

As a kid I had never really been grounded or bothered to sneak out after dark, but I had to imagine it felt a lot like this. Even though the hallways we're wide and brightly lit I had the unshakable feeling of not belonging, being out of bounds as I followed my nose towards the coffee.

The kitchen was no less impressive than I would have imagined, with enough space for a proper chef to work (and I imagine that was the idea, at least for special events) and appliances so high-tech even I would have had a hard time figuring out how to work them… 

“Mugs are above the stove, left side.”

I almost jumped out of my fucking skin. Definitely let out some sort of squeal. For some reason I had thought I would be alone here, or at least that Jarvis would warn me before I had to see, or god forbid, _talk_ to anyone. 

At this point explaining pretty much anything about myself was a fucking minefield. I didn’t even have a legal I.D. card for christsakes. Though I tried not to let my doubts show as I turned to get my first good look at the _‘infamous’_ Pepper Potts. 

…. Who judging by the way she was looking at me _definitely_ thought I was Tony’s leftovers. And she was not impressed. 

She was also fully dressed and already looking tired as hell at six am. And of course she was, she probably hadn't slept after what I'd started last night. Probably wouldn't _get_ to sleep for a while. 

Today was going to be awful for a lot of people. My bad?

Her heels clicked harshly across the tiles as she opened up a totally different cabinet than she had indicated, holding out what looked like a disposable cup with the Stark Industries logo on it. 

“Actually, here.” She shoved the thing into my stunned grasp and gestured to essentially get my coffee and go. “There's was an incident late last night and I'm afraid Mr. Stark is going to be busy for the rest of the day. Jarvis has your number and there'll be a car waiting to take you wherever you want to go.” 

I opened my mouth to, I'm not really sure, protest, I guess. I couldn't leave, and I certainly didn't have anywhere to go. Not to mention I was NOT comfortable with her assuming I had just slept with Tony….not that I _wouldn’t_ sleep with Tony. I had certainly thought about it once or twice, back when he was still a fictional character. It just seemed a lot weirder now. 

“Actually…” I started, but floundered quickly, not wanting to lie but being obviously unable to tell the truth.

“Actually, Miss Bowen will be staying, at least for the time being.” Jarvis to the rescue, it hadn't even been an hour and already having him as an ally was paying off. Too bad he didn't have anything I could physically hug.

God, the look she was giving me now could cut fucking glass. Clearly she thought I was up to something pretty un-good. Taking advantage of Tony in his vulnerable emotional state probably? Though I was hardly his type. 

“Mr. Stark will be down shortly Ms. Potts.”

Aaaand, that’s my cue to leave. I wasn't exactly thrilled about seeing the man himself right now, since something told me his first reaction to the news of what I'd done last night probably wasn't going to be gratitude. Not that that's why I'd done it, at least not entirely. I just didn't want to hear his disbelief, or have him lash out at me in anger. 

He also didn't deserve to have such a vulnerable moment peeped on by a stranger. I’d already seen too many private moments of his life without his consent. 

I should make myself absent. At least for the reveal.

I filled my coffee with whatever the machine had made and didn't bother sticking around to try and find cream or sugar. I just excused myself to ‘get changed’ and wandered out in what I thought was the direction of the lab. 

 

\------------------------------

 

“Update J? ….I can call you 'J’ right?” 

“Of course.”

“Awesome, update?”

I had left the kitchen hoping I could avoid any more uncomfortable encounters for an hour or two. But we were coming up on four in the afternoon now and I hadn't heard a peep from anyone but Jarvis. 

I had used that time to have a shower, get changed, brush my teeth. Be informed by Jarvis that Tony and Pepper had left the house. Moved all of my stuff from the lab to the guest room I'd been using, explored every room Jarvis would let me into (every room except Tony’s), and made myself lunch.

“According to the current news coverage Mr. Stark has called a press conference and will be addressing recent events in just a few minutes.” 

_Progress!_

“Good. Can you turn that on for me?”

“I must warn you miss that there is also much speculation as to the identity of our anonymous source. Most of it is easily ignored, but an entity calling itself the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division is being quite insistent.”

Holy shit. _SHIELD._ I'd brought SHIELD down on us waaay too early. Fuck me.

“Give them the runaround Jarvis, please? We aren't ready to deal with SHIELD yet.” 

“I will do what I can.” 

“And keep an eye out for anyone named Natalie Rushman. Particularly if she applies for a job at Stark Industries.”

“Yes miss, may I ask what is so important about this particular perspective employee?”

“Will you tell Tony?”

“I will inform sir only if he asks.”

“She's a spy for SHIELD. They're going to send her to assess Tony.”

“Very well. I will be most vigilant.” 

“Thanks J.”

\-------------------------------------------

The press conference, when it starts, is heartbreaking. 

Tony is wearing a paper-thin veneer of his usual bluster, and the media are eating it up. It seems idiotic that they can't see the way he clutches at the podium until his knuckles turn white, the way his eyes look glassy and red.

He gives a speech about the company shedding the last of it's sordid past. Going into a brighter future full of clean energy and medicine. Helping instead of hurting. 

Jarvis says the stock isn't looking good. 

I feel like shit that I hadn't even considered that outcome. The company means a lot to Tony. I know better than that. I should have considered this, talked to him about how to go about it.

But… _if_ I'm staying here, so much will change. It will never be perfect. I can't keep doing this coulda shoulda woulda bullshit. It's going to drive me insane. 

The press conference ends with no questions and probably the least amount of applause Tony Stark has ever received. 

I take the time to flip through a few articles online and the public view at the moment does not seem charitable. In fact, I have to stop reading after the first batch of write ups because of just how brazen these vultures are. They assume they know Tony Stark, what kind of man he is, make sweeping and crude judgements about his character. Cut him down in his moment of weakness.

It makes my stomach turn. Makes me suddenly and distinctly uncomfortable at the awareness that our bond only goes one way. That I care for him, _know_ him in the way people do with their favorite characters. We’ve been together for years through ups and downs and all sorts of situations. I've seen him at his lowest and highest and stuck around.

But it wasn't real. I was just a voyeur. Just a _fangirl._ None of it was real for me then. It was all simply in good fun. His suffering had been sad, but ultimately empty, because it wasn't real.

But this...this Tony Stark. I cared for him the same, knew him the same. Except now all the feelings had real weight to them. Had become as tangible as the body they were attached to. 

I had to at least try. 

“Hey Jarvis. Can you tell me where Tony hides the good scotch around here? I've got a feeling he's gonna need a drink when he gets home.”

\------------------

By the time Tony arrived home Jarvis and I had music, food, scotch and even a nice cozy change of clothes lay out. 

The one thing we couldn’t agree on, is whether company would be a good addition to the list. Especially my company in particular. Honestly, I would have thought Pepper and Rhodey would be better friends than that. But Jarvis had assured me that Tony was indeed returning to his Malibu residence _alone._

So basically it was me, or nobody.

And I didn’t really feel great about leaving Tony Stark to drink himself to sleep after the day he’d had. 

I ended up so undecided on this, in fact, that by the time he walked in the door I had to duck behind a bit of weird architecture to hide myself on pure instinct. Apparently having decided at the very last second that I, in fact, did _not_ want to be present for this.

Too late. 

“You’re still here?”

I stepped out into the open, but I could feel myself blushing with how ridiculous I was being. I was embarrassed to hell with how badly I handled everything in the last forty-eight hours. And this was just the cherry on top. 

“Jarvis told on me?”

A brief nod of his head and dear god the man was shameless, already smoothly undoing his tie with a one handed motion. So practiced and clearly designed to be sexy that I suddenly became fascinated by one of the countless nearby pieces of art. He was just changing, the seduction routine was probable second nature for him at this point. 

I heard a deep sigh behind me and a thud as he must have all but thrown himself onto the couch. I let myself look in his direction again, pouring _myself_ a drink before I joined him. Resisting my urge to sit as far away as possible, I put only a single cushion in between us. 

The drum of my fingernails on my tumbler helped distract me from the awkwardness for a few moments. But I should have known Tony Stark couldn’t contain himself for long.

“Any other people near and dear to my heart I should be worried about? Is Happy going to abscond with my fleet of expensive cars, Pepper going to stage an elaborate corporate coup, Rhodey going to steal my designs for military use?”

I could feel the slight tightening of my shoulders as it was happening. But I couldn’t stop it. God, the man was infuriating. As much as I loved him when we were separated by a screen, I was very quickly finding him hard to deal with when we had to be in the same room. 

“Really, _Rhodey?_ Well, I can’t say I’m not surprised. Though after the last twenty four hours it’s not like I have any right to be--”

I had started making soft interrupting noises pretty much as soon as he’d started talking, and they had only increased in volume as he went on. He hadn’t actually stopped talking though, until I’d used goddamn toddler tactics and actually leaned over and put my hand over his mouth. 

“It’s not going to happen, ok? The situation is a lot more complicated than that, and as much as I hate to say it Rhodey kind of does it for the right reasons. You were being a dick at the time, or you _are_ going to be a dick. Well, you were going to be in the future, or you -- _Fuck_ it’s confusing! But it doesn’t matter, because it’s not going to-- _Uegh!”_

He licked my hand, because of course he did. 

I wiped it on his couch in spite.

“Happen? No, of course not. Because I’ve got an oracle on my side.” 

“That’s the spirit.” 

My voice was practically dripping with sarcasm.

He threw his head back and finished about three fingers of scotch in one go. Holding his drink out like I was supposed to hop up and get him more. 

I just poured my untouched glass into his. Tony didn’t seem to mind. 

A pep talk was bubbling up behind my lips. Something grand about the hero he would become and how his future was full of so much more than darkness and betrayal. It was something I knew he needed to hear. But at the same time...

It wouldn't matter. Wouldn't mean anything coming from me. And worse than that, I didn’t want Tony to think for even a second that when he accomplished all of that, that he owed one drop of it to me.

Or for it to not happen at all. After all, if you're guaranteed to succeed….

So I stayed silent, and, surprisingly, so did he.

At first it was awkward, I was hyper-aware of his presence beside me. Kept expecting him to tell me to fuck off, leave him alone. Or to just ask me more questions.

But the quiet only dragged on. 

In fact the uncharacteristic silence was saying something all it's own. It was acceptance. Of my presence here, my help, my intrusion into his life. 

I doubted Tony would like me anytime soon, I was the bearer of far too much bad news for us to be fast friends. But it was clear from the fact that he was letting me stay here, dropping his guard so easily -- that he believed I was here to help. That even if I hadn’t earned his appreciation; I had earned his trust. 

That was more than good enough for now.

It would have to be.

 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I had absolutely no memory of falling asleep that night, but I woke up late the next morning with a sniff neck and a stack of Stark electronics piled up next to me.

I gave my eyes a good wipe and turned the new phone over in my hand, scrutinizing it closely. 

“Mr. Stark spent quite a few hours last night attempting to revive the electronics that arrived with you from your…” I almost laughed, I had never heard a computer lost for words before. 

“However he was ultimately unsuccessful,” and oh, ouch, I bet Tony had just been overjoyed that he couldn’t even fix my phone. Not that it was his fault, it was probably broken by magic or something, but still - had to sting. “And has provided you with a new set of top of the line _Stark Tech_ models instead. Any data that could be transferred, has been.”

Well that was something at least. Though I wasn't expecting much to have survived. 

“I believe this is Mr. Stark’s way of expressing his thanks.”

Ok. _That_ was a little surprising. I hadn't exactly been getting an aura of overwhelming gratitude from him last night. 

“Does Mr. Stark expect anything from me in return?” I asked cautiously, standing up and stretching the stiffness from the sleeping limbs. 

“He has mentioned he would appreciate your input on a project he is working on.”

For a second all I could think in response to that was ‘Uh, What?’. Not that Tony knew this, but I was hardly a scientist, and I knew _nothing_ about engineering -- what could he be working on that I could possibly…

Oh. 

Duh.

“He wants my input on the suit. Thinks he can take advantage of my apparent omniscience to build it harder, better, faster, stronger?”

“Something like that, yes.” 

Jarvis seemed unimpressed with my dumb joke, though you would think he’d be used to it by now.

There was probably no need to rush. I wasn’t quite enough of a nerd to know the specific timeline of the Iron Man movies but I didn’t think Tony could go from not even having a working repulsor model to having a full prototype suit in a day. I had time.

Still, I was undeniably excited to get down there and see him working, and...not just that. But to have an exchange with him where I could be helpful in a positive way. It might have been selfish of me, but I was eager to be the bearer of _good_ news. 

So I skipped a shower. Call me gross but somehow I was pretty sure I would be in similar company. Judging by what I’d heard this morning from Jarvis, Tony either hadn’t slept, or hadn’t slept _much._ So it was a pretty safe bet to assume he also hadn’t taken the time to freshen up. 

Which pretty much kept me from feeling bad at all for just throwing on a different t-shirt and some leggings and swinging by for some coffee before heading downstairs. 

I even grabbed two cups, because I’m thoughtful like that. 

Also I understood the value of getting on Tony Stark’s good side. 

 

\-------------------------------------------------------

 

“Coffee and Clairvoyant delivery service.” 

My voice sounded way too loud in the open space of the lab, to be honest I had expected to have to compete with music. Of course, none had been playing the other night when I had been dumped in here, but I sort of though Jarvis had cut it in shock when I arrived. 

“Coffee on the desk, you, over here.”

He pointed to where he wanted me and I tried not to bristle at his rudeness. I knew how he was, hell, I had _liked_ how he was when it wasn’t directed at me. So I smiled and decided I just needed an adjustment period. 

“Jarvis said you had questions?” or something like that. 

“Yea, something like that.” He seemed way too engaged in what he was doing to even fully absorb the fact that I was here. Darting between tables and connecting cables to...himself? 

Now he was strapping something to his chest, practically vibrating with energy. 

“You’re on fire safety.” he indicated a device that didn’t look at all like a fire extinguisher, sitting on one of the nearby workbenches. I moved towards him but my mind was quite literally a world away.

_For lack of a better option, Dummy is still on fire safety._

Did that mean I was a better option?

It wasn’t much of a compliment but somehow I still took it as one.

Things were already changing. 

I knew this moment. But it hadn’t been like this.

_Of course_ I knew things would change. You couldn’t make changes, huge changes like the kinds I was going to make...already _had_ made, without the world shaping itself around them. 

It was just different: knowing things are going to change, watching them change infront of your eyes, and being in the middle of them as it happens. 

“You got this?”

He was sliding the skeletal looking gauntlets over his arms. All wires and metal scaffolding. Smiling and excitable and looking for all the world like not a damn thing bad happened yesterday. 

I wondered how much of it was an act.

I smiled back and picked up the extinguisher, raising it in acknowledgement and taking up a post outside of his designated practice area. 

“Don’t start with ten percent, you’ll faceplant on the ceiling. One or two should do it.”

There was a momentary look of surprise on his face, but it was quickly covered by a raised eyebrow and a smirk. 

“See _that_ is why I asked Jarvis to invite you. You’re insightful in a creepy, casually psychic way.”

He moved into the middle of the cleared area and sort of shook himself, like he was getting ready to perform. 

I guess he kind of was.

“Ok Jarvis, start recording. Let’s do this right. Start mark half a meter and back of center.”

He turned to me and pointed, mouth open as if to continue, but he seemed stuck. Still, I waved dumbly to where I thought the camera was. Tony was still staring at me though, a steady furrow building between his brows. 

“Cut recording.” 

“What’s wrong?” He was already walking towards me, looking suddenly serious. 

“Why don’t I know your name?”

“You don’t?”

“You haven’t told me.”

“You saw my license. I didn’t think I had to.”

“It’s ‘L’ something…J, hot or cold?”

“Quite hot, Sir. Would you like a clue?”

“Hang on, how did this become a game?” I couldn't help but ask, trying to keep my tone disapproving but if I could hear the laughter in my voice, and I knew Tony probably could as well. 

“What do Sergeant Rhodes and the CIA have in common, Sir?” 

I burst out laughing. It was a good hint, and also ridiculous. Tony seemed to be genuinely trying to figure it out too, so I got to see what a super-genius looks like when he’s trying to solve a word puzzle of his own making. 

“Langley, really, _Langley?_ What were your parents thinking, naming you after CIA headquarters, that you’d be hard to get into? Not a bad quality in a daughter, I guess…”

“Weren’t we running an experiment here? Because you could be flying right now, or learning to fly, anyways. Try to avoid scorching your cars, by the way.”

The look he gave me then had the words ‘no shit’ printed all over it as he backed up into the middle of the room again.

“Alright, take 2. Jarvis, again, start mark half a meter and back of center.” He shifted around in the makeshift suit parts, and even though I _knew_ it was going to work I felt a tingle of anticipation start in my stomach. “Ok, activate hand controls.” 

“You heard the lady, we’re gonna take it nice and easy. Two percent thrust capacity only, Jarvis, let’s go. Three...two...one…”

And then I got to watch Tony Stark fly, for the very first time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bug, a party and a budding friendship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things start to go off the rails in more ways than one.

**September 27th (a little over two months later)**

“Mr. Stark is requesting your presence downstairs miss.”

“Well _Mr. Stark_ can suck it.” 

The words leapt out of me before I could bite them back. I know Jarvis didn’t approve of how contentious me and Tony’s relationship had become lately. But honestly this morning I was having a hard time bringing myself to care. 

I checked the time on my phone. It had barely been an hour since I left Tony to his work. How many times did I have to tell him I had no more information. Putting together the suit was his job, not mine. I wasn’t going to miraculously conjure up more information just because he insisted on keeping me imprisoned down there.

“Miss, Sir is becoming agitated. If you could please join him in the lab. Or at least respond to his texts.”

“You know, he did this once on his own? Or he would have anyways…”. 

Fucking temporal descriptors were becoming the bane of my existence.

“So you have said many times, miss.”

 

\------------------------------------------------------

 

“You’re insufferable, you know that?”

“When you’re as rich as I am it’s actually pronounced ‘eccentric’.” 

Despite myself I cracked a small smirk at that, though I took a loud slurp from my coffee cup to rub in the fact I hadn’t brought him one. Again. It was my current favorite way to passive aggressively express my displeasure. 

He did not look amused.

“Come over here, I’m about to start fabrication. Everything look right to you?”

_Fucking. Finally._

“I’m not an engineer.”

“You know what it looks like when it’s done.”

“Nothing says it can’t look slightly different and work just as well.”

“So something’s still off?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Well you didn’t say it looked ready, maybe I should take another look at--”

_“TONY!”_

He deflated all at once, running a greasy hand through his hair and taking in a deep breath.

“I get it, I get it. And you’re completely right. It’s ready, it’ll work…’course it will. I built it. And you’ve done more than enough. Helped me preempt the icing problems, and I never would have put in any cloaking devices if you hadn’t told me how the military might react. So ya, it’s good, it’s good...we’re as ready as we’ll ever be.”

The bluster was obviously forced, but he was trying, and it was a first step. I could only hope that once he actually got the suit on. Once he could fly, and shoot rockets, and lift a fucking tank it would help him get some of his confidence and independence back. 

For now all I could do was try and support him...and maybe lighten the mood? It really wasn’t so much that I was angry, or even that I was annoyed (though I _was_ ). I just wanted him to stand on his own. Relying on me for shit was going to bite him in the ass, I wasn’t smart like he was. I was just some fangirl who got...lucky? _Debatable._ But he needed to realize that, before it caused actual problems. 

Stepping up to his side I put a calming hand on Tony’s shoulder and reached out to spin the holographic representation of the suit, pretending to scrutinize it closely, making over exaggerated thinking noises. 

My efforts earned me a strained chuckle. 

“Whaddya think doc, will it fly?” 

“Oh, it’ll fly. But don’t you think the paint job’s a little...?”

“Tacky? Ostentatious?” He suggested.

“One-dimensional.” I countered, pointedly. 

The skeptical but amused look he gave me in response spoke volumes. Tony clearly knew I was trying to nudge him towards the correct paint job. A color scheme he would have chosen on his own, organically, about a month from now. When the suit would have been properly ready.

But things were happening both a little ahead of and behind schedule, depending on how you looked at it.

I cleared my throat, and jerked my head comically towards the Roadster. A brief look of confusion flashed over his face before he cracked a smirk.

“Jarvis, throw a little hot rod red on there.”

The mock up changed, taking on a much more familiar design. I couldn't help but be a little awestruck.

“Yes, that should help you keep a low profile.”

It was actually happening. 

“Estimated completion in 5 hours.”

I watched, wide eyed and completely fascinated as the bots went to work assembling the suit. Until the harsh clap of Tony's hands way too close to my ear snapped me out of my reference for the moment. 

“Well.. I say it's time to celebrate. Don't you? No alcohol, obviously. I can't drink and fly. But maybe some Chinese? A movie. You still like that place with the spicy shrimp right? I'm getting a double order.”

 

\-------------------------------------

 

The Pepper proximity alarm, as I had so lovingly dubbed it, began blaring before I even took my first bite of victory lo mein. 

I dropped my chopsticks and fixed Tony with a heavy glare, unfolding myself from the couch. 

“She’s going to notice sooner or later that I’m living here. You already got called out for having Jarvis double your grocery orders. Seriously, the woman handles your personal budgets. Don’t you think she’ll eventually notice you’ve started ordering _feminine hygiene products.’_ I used a dramatic stage whisper for the last three words, like I was talking about a horcrux or something. Tony rolled his eyes, brandishing an eggroll at me and gesturing towards the door.

“Yes, but she also called me out for hiring a hooker last week. Said I had a permanent -- and I’m not paraphrasing here -- ‘post orgasm’ look about me these days. Maybe I’ll just tell her the hooker moved in.”

“You do that,” I sniped, snatching up the dim sum on my way out.

 

\----------------------------------------------

 

So, yeah……

Jarvis might be right about my relationship with Tony. 

There was some definite room for improvement.

 

\-----------------------------------------------

Unfortunately just because we weren’t getting along, didn’t mean I was blind. 

The first time I saw the fully completed Iron Man armor snap into place something in my libido snapped with it. 

There was a lot about Tony to find attractive, sure. And I'd had more than a casual interest in him when he was just Robert Downey Jr. with weird facial hair. But since being here there had been a decidedly more ‘reluctant-ally’ vibe between us than anything sexual. 

It felt like my sex drive had just emerged from hibernation.

Maybe it could be blamed on our seclusion. After all, it had been only us two and Jarvis for almost two months. Tight (hah!) quarters and a working relationship do not a romance make, if you’re not a Dollanganger, anyways. Maybe if I'd seen him out and about, in his element I would have been more prepared for this moment. 

It was like my brain finally _really_ got it. Now it understood.

That's _Tony Stark._

_Genius. Billionaire. Playboy. Philanthropist._

If I actually _had_ been in a comic I'm sure my thought bubble would just be dirty pictures and a nearby _'sploosh’_ sound effect right about now. 

Tony of course was turning himself around, arms out, grinning like a loon. Either he didn't notice my extra scrutiny...or he was so used to be eyed up like a pricy desert that it didn't even register.

The suit was a panty dropper, and he damn well knew it. 

“How do I look?” he eventually asked, the cocky tilt of his eyebrows telling me everything I needed to know about the response he expected.

I fought back the urge to wolf whistle and fan myself. Instead I just gave him a big smile and toasted him with my tea.

“Like Iron Man.” I said. 

 

\-------------------

 

I didn’t get to sleep that night until Jarvis told me that Tony had returned home safely. 

 

\-------------------------------------------------

 

The click of the intercom was the only warning I ever got before Tony interrupted my attempts to  
relax.

“Are you keeping secrets?” The sound came through muffled but I could hear the sound of heavy things being shifted about in the background. 

_‘Oh boy, what a question.’_

“Tony, I could not even begin to list the secrets I am keeping from you, for practical reasons only. The sheer amount of _time_ it would take me to tell you everything I know...not to mention _should_ know….”

I just shook my head and stopped talking with a sigh. He knew all this, Tony wasn’t an idiot. Therefore…

“Was there a particular reason you asked?”

“Just wondering why my living room has suddenly turned into tiny-town.”

Turned into wh-- _oh._

“I asked Jarvis to send some things from the old Stark Expo over. I’ll be right there. Actually, it all needs to go down to the lab anyways. If you take the model, I’ll take the boxes that should also be there.”

“Roger that, over.” The intercom cut off with a weird gurgly noise that I interpreted to be Tony trying to make a radio noise with his mouth. 

How was one to explain to a friend that they were slowly being poisoned to death -- but don’t panic, I vaguely know the solution? At least we got a head start? Yea, somehow I didn’t think those were going to poll very well. 

“I hope you have the technology somewhere on hand to play these old videos because I think they’re important.” Honestly I couldn’t remember. I had watched Iron Man 2 and 3 about once and a half each. 

I knew he looked at the diagram and watched an old reel of his dad and _boom_ new element. Fuck me I had never missed being able to google something so much. 

“We can probably rig something up. I’m way more interested in what we’re going to do with this diagram. Did good ol’ dad hide some secret weapon designs? A treasure hunt could be fun.”

“Well…” I set my armful of boxes down and walked over to look at the model. It seemed insane to me that something so mundane looking could hold the blueprints for an entirely new element, or for synthetic vibranium, depending on who you asked. 

“You’re not totally wrong, depending on your definition of treasure. I’m no scientist, but somewhere in all this…” I gestured to the tiny buildings. “Are the bluepri--”

Tony and I both jumped as Jarvis sounded an alarm through the lab. I’d heard it before, it was his fire alarm, except he had sounded it only once, before cutting it off. Almost like he was just trying to interrupt us.

“Jarvis?”

Across from me, Tony was looking just as confused.

“I apologize for the interruption, Sir. However, I have detected an outgoing signal that I am unable to trace. I have blocked it for now, but it likely came in with --”

“With the boxes, thanks J.”

Tony, face nothing but serious now pulled open several drawers and started to rifle through them. Eventually emerging with a small _‘aha’_ noise and a strange device in hand that looked almost like a barcode scanner. 

I knew better than to say anything right now, as I watched Tony run the device over the things we had brought down to the lab, but I had the impulse to say all sorts of baiting things. To rub it in SHIELDs face that, yeah, they were on to me...but I was so many goddamn steps ahead of them I might as well be playing a different game. 

No way was I that stupid though. No matter how much insider knowledge I had I wasn’t super, it would only take one bullet from any random SHIELD agent to take me down. Better not to encourage them. 

After what felt like an eternity Tony pulled an old notebook from the bottom of the box, extracting a long, thin metal thing from it’s spine before breaking it into tiny pieces. 

“All clear, J?”

“Yes sir, and I have calibrated my weaker sensors in the other parts of the house to the signal. I should be able to pick it up faster in the case of a repeat event.”

He wiped his hands on his jeans, dusty from rummaging through the decades unused items in the boxes. 

“No heads up, so I’m guessing this was all new to you?”

I nodded, still a little shaken. I was going to have to get used to the idea that I wasn’t always going to see everything coming. Probably more and more as things went on. Many of which would probably more violent than this by miles. 

If I was going to immerse myself in a world of spies and superheroes, I couldn’t be surprised when someone planted a listening device I wasn’t prepared for. That was probably child's’ play to them.

“Phil Coulson would have pursued you, I think he had his suspicions you were Iron Man, but there was nothing like this.”

“They’re looking for you, then.” He wasn’t asking, that was a statement of fact. 

“Probably. SHIELD isn’t stupid. Jarvis said they were suspicious after what happened with Stane….and I have reason to believe they know the value of what’s in these boxes. So…”

I shrugged. I didn’t want to be pursued by SHIELD, but there was no way I was going to stop using the knowledge I had.

Speaking of, better out than in.

“It’s a new element.” I shrugged, like, no big deal. Huge scientific discovery, pursued by spies, in an alternate universe talking to a superhero billionaire….just a normal tuesday. 

“Your dad discovered it, I think, but he didn’t have the technology to actually make it. The model should be laid out to give you the atomic structure and then…..”

Then I didn’t remember, so I shrugged, giving him my best ‘beats me’ grin.

“A particle accelerator?”

Another shrug. All I knew about particle accelerators I learned from watching The Flash, which probably meant it was all bullshit. Also something to do with black holes.

My thanks was an annoyed sigh, and to be ignored in favor of Tony unloading the boxes. Like the fact that I had even brought all this to his attention was completely negligible in the face of me not having every single last one of the answers he needed. 

I opened my mouth to say something rude, something scathing that would no doubt start a fight, but where would that get us? I would just end up apologizing to him. Tony wasn’t mature enough to back down, so I had to be. 

So I bit my tongue and left the room without saying a word.

I don’t think Tony even noticed I was gone. 

 

\---------------------------------------------------

 

Embarrassingly it’s the beginning of October before I remember there are people, other than Tony, that I could be helping right now.

The epiphany happens out of nowhere, during a one am trip to the toilet, on a night just like any other.

“Heimdall?” I whisper into the darkness of the bathroom, feeling even weirder than I had the first time I tried to talk to Jarvis. Partly because this time it was magic I was counting on hearing me, not technology...something I had a much less friendly relationship with. And partly because I wasn’t sure if I _wanted_ him to.

So much about Asgard was terrifying to me, now that it was a real place full of real monsters and real warriors. Odin was a harsh ruler, and once he knew of my presence I wouldn’t put it past him to squash me like a bug if he found anything about me the least bit threatening. 

And then there was Loki….

But it wasn’t just like I could not even _try_ to warn them about what was coming. 

“Heimdall, I’m pretty sure you can hear me. You see everything right? So you know I’m not from around here, that I know the future of this world -- this _‘realm’_. Well, it’s your future too, or at least it will be if nothing changes…”

God I hoped he could hear me. I knew he had a few selective blindspots, Loki in particular, and it would make some sort of weird sense if my being from another reality made me hard to track but…

“Ok, you don’t need to say anything, just listen. Some time pretty soon some Frost Giants are gonna infiltrate your vaults and make a grab for the…” what the fuck was it called, “the cask of eternal winter? I might have the name wrong but you know what I’m talking about.”

Smooth. Good start.

“They fail but Thor takes the Warriors Three to Jotunheim to retaliate and it’s a whole thing. Anyways, Thor ends up exiled to earth and it kicks off this whole ordeal that ends up with a small town in New Mexico getting totally fucked and Loki basically turning evil. So if we could somehow skip it…?”

Well. if we could somehow skip it then the world wouldn’t have Thor. But then again, the world might not even really need Thor if Loki wasn’t going to be as much of a problem. 

It could change a helluva lot. 

“So yea….just, get back to me? I guess. Let me know how it turns out.”

 

\--------------------------------

**October 16th**

A few weeks after my entirely unproductive non-chat with Heimdall I entered my borrowed bedroom to find a stack of shopping bags on my bed.

“Presents?”

I asked, trying to sound less skeptical and more excited. I couldn’t think of a single thing I would want that could be in there though. Jarvis ordered anything to the house that I needed, and I didn’t recognize the logo printed on the side of the bags.

“Of a kind. Mr. Stark requests you accompany him to a benefit this evening and has asked me to acquire several outfits for you to consider for the event.”

My brain stuttered and parsed over that sentence for a moment.

“Dresses? They’re fancy dresses?”

“And jewelry and shoes, I believe.” 

Oh nonononono --

“Nonononono.”

“Shall I relay that response to Mr. Stark?”

“I’m not a gala kind of girl J. Tony can’t just take me to some red carpet function on a moment's notice. I have no idea how to…. I just _can’t.”_

Unable to help myself I tentatively reached out and peeked into one of the bags, a softly shimmering violet fabric lay on top. I released it immediately, and the door to my room opened behind me.

“You have to come.”

“No.”  
“Yes.”  
“No.”  
“Yes.”

“ **No** ”

“ _Yes._ ”

“Well this is productive.”

Time to change tactics. 

“Tony, you haven’t left the house in months. **I** haven’t left this house _ever_. Suddenly going to some big event seems kinda extreme.”

“I know.”

“Ok...so, why?”

“No idea.”

“You don’t know why you want to go?”

“I don’t want to go.”

Jesus Christ, this man was going to be the death of me. 

“Ok. I’m bored of this game now. Tell me what’s going on Tony.”

He held his hands up, arranging his face into the perfect picture of innocence. 

“You mentioned ages ago we had to go to this thing. Just trying to stick to the plot.” 

_‘The plot’._. Oh he thought he was so clever.

“Look just try them on, I had Jarvis get you a great spread. Something in there has got to strike your fancy, I’ll even get someone to come do your hair and makeup, if it’s the cameras freaking you out.”

Holy shit it was the Firemen thing, Tony and Pepper’s first moment, the one that got interrupted by the one-night-stand girl from the opening scene of the movie….Christine something?

“I’ll be right with you the whole time, anyone starts annoying you I’ll just do something outrageous. No one will even know you’re there.”

In other words, _‘you’ll just be the flavor of the month, nobody will even notice you.’_ Well, he wasn’t really wrong, everyone would be way too caught up in the grand return of Tony Stark to look twice at me, except...

“Except I'm not a supermodel or an actress or a…..a CEO, Tony! I'm not attractive enough to be your arm candy. No matter how expensive my dress is.”

“You're gonna look great.” He just plowed through my excuses, more flippant than actually reassuring as he physically waved my excuses aside. Picking up the bags on the bed and unceremoniously dumping them out one by one. I flinched in sympathy for the expensive fabrics.

“Tony, I --”

“I need you there.”

It was unexpected, and serious, and said while making an intense sort of eye contact that inherently made me want to squirm and agree to anything he asked for.

Not that it lasted long, he broke before I did, and finished the thought while fiddling with the clasp of a necklace that I think was made of actual diamonds. 

“I’ll owe you one, no holds barred. Sexual favors included. You know I’m good for it.”

I laughed, and it was only partly forced. He was an asshole. He _had been_ an asshole to me, recently even. And despite the fact that we had been having more and more friendly interactions lately…..we _weren’t_ friends. 

Going might be a bad idea. _Was_ a bad idea. For a lot of reasons, not the least of which was the romance I knew I was already kind of ruining just be being here. Tony hadn’t spent _any_ time with Pepper since I’d shown up, not that I’d seen. She called some times, and stopped by the house, usually with papers to sign or to try and get him to go to some meetings. But I hadn’t seen, or heard of a single bonding moment between the two….and I spent usually around eight hours a day with the guy. 

It probably would have come up.

Had I ruined something already? Stopped something good by trying to stop the bad?

I hated the thought that by meddling I had somehow cost Tony any amount of his future happiness. 

“Let Jarvis know when you pick a dress.”

“What, why?”

But I was too late, he was out the door, and I was just considering going after him to continue the conversation when Jarvis spoke up. 

“Mr. Stark would like you to know that makeup and hair professionals are on their way to the property. The benefit will be starting in three in a half hours.” 

I looked at the spread of lavish goods in front of me, thinking bleakly of the night ahead as I felt the introvert inside me give a final dying shriek, accepting its fate. 

 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Tony Stark, apparently, did _not_ show up to parties with women. 

He showed up to parties and the women came to him.

So when we pulled up together, in matching outfits (his tie and pocket square looked to be made out of the same exact material as my dress, no wonder he told Jarvis to tell him when I picked), with linked arms and obviously at ease with each other.

Well… the tabloids had us down as some secret love affair before my feet even hit the -- _actual motherfucking_ \-- red carpet.

Tony just kept pushing me forwards with a firm hand on the small of my back, waving to all the cameras and looking for all the world like he genuinely _wanted_ to be here … soaking in the limelight like he hadn't ever left. 

The relief when we got inside was nearly palpable, at least for me. I hadn't felt that socially overwhelmed since highschool and I made a fast beeline for the open bar, grumbling all the way. 

“Two vodka martinis, please. One with extra olives and um… I’d like sweet tea mixed with rum. Non-spiced if you have it.”

“That sounds absolutely disgusting.” 

Like he had any right to talk about disgusting. Those plant smoothies he drank when he was on an engineering kick were downright _rank._

“And three drinks, why three? Not that I'm condemning your overindulgence, you've just picked an odd time to dig in.” 

I shot him the dryest look I could manage. Honestly, I was about to make a noble sacrifice for the sake of this man's future love life and this is how he treats me?

“The martinis are for you and Pepper. Take them and go fetch. Her’s has extra olives. She's wearing a light blue backless number, you can't miss her.“

Tony took the drinks obligingly but eyed me skeptically for a few more seconds, as if sure I was trying to trick him somehow. 

I made a shooing motion with my hands, beginning to sip at my cocktail. The end of the bar was practically abandoned so I picked a stool there and tried to look nondescript (a much easier task now, without Tony Stark standing next to me). 

-

An easy twenty minutes or so passed. I made small talk with the bartender and tried to look busy with my phone whenever another guest steered my way. 

Luckily no one inside the event seemed to care at all who I was. The mystery was only of interest to the media apparently…. Speaking of, Christine what's-her-name seemed to be making a fucking beeline in my direction.

It suddenly seemed like time to pee.

Unfortunately I took one step and actually bodily collided with Phil Coulson.

And _then_ I did something _really_ stupid.

I panicked. 

On a list of things not to do in front of trained secret agents, giving away the fact that you _know_ that they are trained secret agents when you definitely shouldn’t has got to be right at the top next to human trafficking.

There was a mumbled apology, an equally inept excuse and then I managed to _totally not run away._ Actually, all things considered my escape went quite smoothly until someone grabbed my arm as I passed.

I might have screamed a little.

Tony dragged me out onto the balcony. 

“Ok, what was that? Because not that I don’t applaud you for making a scene at your very first public event, but something tells me you didn’t exactly have that planned.”

All of the levity in his tone was ruined by the furrow of his brow and the way he kept shooting looks over his shoulder as he spoke. He wasn’t mad at me, at least I didn’t think he was. But something about my panic has certainly set him on edge.

It dawned on me that I had now also ruined his evening with Pepper. He should have been able to have the whole night this time, no illegal weapons deal to interrupt them….not with Obadiah gone and most of the Ten Rings already decimated by Iron Man. 

“That was Phil Coulson, Pepper didn’t tell you about him? They’ve definitely already met, way back at your original press conference.” At his look of confusion I corrected myself, “The one where you announced you weren’t making weapons anymore.” Because of course Tony Stark had held many press conferences over the course of his life, there was nothing inherently _‘original’_ about that one other than it was the first one in the movie. 

And _this_ was not a movie.

“So, what? Is he the next big bad? Leader of some shadowy government organization, is that where all this is leading? Because I could definitely go for taking down ---”

The fact that I was enthusiastically shaking my head seemed to finally catch up to him. 

“It isn’t that. Coulson is a good guy. On of the few SHIELD has, in my opinion, but the situation is more complicated than that.”

Tony pressed closer to me, an intense look on his face but with body language kept purposefully casual. To anyone else this interaction would look intimate, like he was comforting me. Hard money on tabloids reporting tomorrow that we’d had some sort of lover’s spat….

“Then explain it to me….”

That’s the problem isn’t it. It’s all too complicated. How could I even begin to explain to Tony the moral grey blob that was SHIELD. How could I explain Nick Fury, the World Security council, the Avengers Initiative? How could I explain that they were a necessary evil, that we would probably _have_ to work with them. That they would most likely reject Tony _again_ (even with my help) all while exploiting him for his technology and his brain. That they were currently infested with one of the most evil organizations on the planet and _we couldn’t do anything about it_ because we weren’t strong enough yet.

It was all just too much.

“They’re kind of like the Men in Black, I guess. They investigate supernatural and extraordinary happenings. In the name of international defense….” I thought back over my statement, it sounded kind of dumb, but as far as I knew it was pretty accurate, “they make pretty shitty decisions though, and Nick Fury -- the Shield director -- is a total jackass. You two get along _great._ ”

“Yea, well, you know what they say about ‘strong personalities.’” He joked, seeming to take a second to mull over what I’d said before continuing, “So….aliens? Magic?”

I nodded. 

“I would say I’ll believe it when I see it, but..”

“But I fell through a hole in your ceiling?”

“Yea, that’ll give even a skeptic like me some pause.” 

“Well you’ll have more evidence soon enough. We’re at most a year out from out first alien encounter. Probably less, if my plans work.”

Pretty optimistic of me to call one midnight conversation with Heimdall a ‘plan’, but what Tony didn’t know can’t hurt him.

I could see him gearing up to ask for more details, but from my perspective I could see Pepper pulling away from the crowd to approach us. So I cut him off, waving over his shoulder and pasting my fake smile back on. 

And to my surprise, Pepper smiled back, reaching out to shake my hand. 

“So you’re the culprit.” she exchanged a look with Tony that was full of exasperation and humor, “I’ve been after Tony about introducing me for weeks, I’m glad he finally decided to take you out of hiding.”

Oh. _Oh._

Well that was confusing. And weird. 

She didn’t seem jealous at all, or surprised -- and Tony looked almost….embarrassed? Their romance was a lost cause then, if she’d thought he was seeing someone this whole time. Not that he looked bummed about it. 

At least I remember to stop being baffled for long enough to introduce myself.

“Well, it’s lovely to meet you. Hopefully this means you’ll stop running for cover whenever I come around the house?” She laughed again and gave Tony a playful shove on the arm. 

An answer to that was probably expected, but for some reason I had been suddenly struck with all the ‘omg a celebrity’ weirdness that had somehow managed to mostly skip me around Tony. I think I managed a stiff nod. 

She and Tony exchanged a few more words, mostly about some business deal and Pepper gave him a brisk kiss on the cheek before disappearing back into the crowd. 

He fixed me with a curious look, and I immediately cracked.

“You’re supposed to be in love with her.” 

It basically exploded out of me. It was like I was confessing my sins. Sorry for robbing you of your one true love, it was an accident. 

“Excuse me.”

“I messed something up. You two were supposed to be together.”

For a second I thought he was about to get genuinely angry with me for the first time, but his shoulders relaxed into a shrug after only a few moments. 

“Maybe you fixed it. Pepper and I….”

I fixed him with a hard stare. His face was closed off now, but I could tell he was thinking deeply about something. I wanted to know what. If he was mad at me for this I couldn’t exactly blame him.

Then he broke into a smile.

“Let’s dance.”

My face must have said _‘what?’_ clearly enough, because -- 

“It’s a party. Parties are supposed to be fun. Our lives are serious enough already. Let’s go have a good time. We’ll deal with all the weirdness later.” 

He was holding out his hand, clearly waiting for me to take it. To give in. 

“Come on.”

So I did.

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------

 

We arrived back at the mansion over five hours later, drunk off our butts and having a great time. 

It was nice, seeing Tony so relaxed and happy. It felt like he’d been doing nothing but working on the suit since I got here. Sure, he found time to make jokes, and I knew he enjoyed being Iron Man...but that couldn’t be all he was. 

I liked getting to know this side of Tony Stark. 

He was sneakily thoughtful, introducing me to everyone we had met inside the party tonight as a different relation. I was his third cousin twice removed one minute, an anthropologist studying billionaires the next, and even his tantric sex therapist once (I tried really hard not to laugh at that one). 

It wouldn’t completely spare me oncoming media speculation storm, but it would certainly confuse it. After all it was hard to report on something when you couldn’t get your story straight.  
I appreciated his effort so I told him as much, drunkenly honest in my currently state.

Tony had tried to talk me into continuing our adventure in alcohol at home, but I was already bringing Jarvis up on my phone to ask him to start coffee for us inside. 

We were going to play never have I ever while taking espresso shots instead of alcohol. Drinking games had come up on the way back (Tony had gotten a limo from somewhere, god only knows what happened to the car we arrived with), and we had both lamented the fact that our vast sexual exploits always made us lose at that particular party game. 

Immediately a competition had been born….and while I was sure Tony could outdo me in pure quantity. I had a few oddball experiences up my sleeve that I thought might give him a run for his money.

Basically it was _so_ on.

…...

Then we walked through the front door and Jarvis alerted us to the fact that we had brought another one of SHIELDS listening devices back with us. 

Which meant Phil Coulson definitely knew who I was. 

We sobered up pretty quickly after that. 

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS: Sorry if anyone wanted/was expecting actions scenes. There will definitely be some later, but since nothing important happened the stuff Iron-Man did off screen in this chapter (that you didn't see in the movies) it wasn't included. 
> 
> Completely new actions scenes, or things that have been changes slightly by our dimension hopper will be revisited in detail. 
> 
> Thanks for reading :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My first ‘fuck you’ to the official MCU timeline starts in this chapter, but it certainly won’t be the last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this chapter isn’t too confusing for anyone, one annoying part of deciding to do this in first person is a lot of the bullshit going on behind the scenes will probably never get fully seen. Sorry about that. Maybe I’ll write short chapters about it and put it up in like a side story if I get enough complaints.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Bright, it was so fucking bright. 

_Fucking bullshit._

I rolled over and pulled a pillow over my head, snuggling myself deeper into the sweet smelling, silky covers that---

“Where’m I?” I sat up quickly, blinking like crazy and shielding my eyes to try and get used to the light. Ugh, I was definitely a little hung over. 

“Relax, sleeping beauty. You fell asleep on the couch, I moved you upstairs when Pepper showed up. Unannounced, I might add.”

“Upstairs…?” My brain was still heavy with sleep fog, so it took me a second to figure out exactly what the fuck was going on. But even when I did -- I was still confused.

“Tony, am I in your _bed?_ ” Whoops, it was probably a bit insulting how upset I sounded about that. But in my defence, what the fuck. 

I kicked the covers off me and rubbed some of the sleep out of my eyes, sighing when I saw the black smears on my hands when I pulled them away. _Perfect._ With everything going on last night I forgot to take my makeup off, I bet I looked stunning. 

“We’re in a relationship, remember? I mean, it was Pepper’s assumption that started that whole storyline but I kind of like it. Ties up a whole reason to always have you around in a nice little bow, and if we ever need to do anything covert we can just…” he waved his hands around in gestures that I hoped weren’t supposed to be sexual, “sneak off together.”

Ok. Definitely sexual, with the eyebrows. Honestly, I was starting to think this had been his plan all along, the sneaky asshole. 

Maybe I should be mad about it too, since technically he went behind my back to do it. Telling Pepper, the matching outfits at the gala. But what the fuck would I even say? That it was a good idea, but I didn’t want to have to deal with the fallout. Tough shit.

“I think I’m still missing a peice of how we got from point A to point B.” I grumbled, stumbling into his fucking _cavern_ of a bathroom to wash off my face. 

“Oh, right, well, I was being a neglectful boyfriend, letting you sleep on the couch. Pep insisted I be a gentleman and put you to bed, even supervised incase I decided to get fresh.” 

I snorted and opened the bathroom cabinet, banking on the fact that ‘the Tony Stark’™ would have some spare bathroom products stored for his one night stands. And whaddya know. Jackpot. 

“So, any developments?”

“Mmm, Jarvis got some hits. I didn’t think I should look at them without you though. Forbidden knowledge or whatever.”

“Well, you’re invited to the grand reveal, so your self-restraint is appreciated but unnecessary. But please tell me you’ve slept, like, at least an hour or two.”

When he didn’t respond immediately, I went straight to the source.

“Jarvis?”

“Sir has been awake for thirty-two hours and has not consumed solid food within the last twelve. He has, however, made a smoothie.”

Well, thank heaven for small mercies. I felt like I should at least golf-clap. 

But still...

“Tony, we might be seeing Shield today. You need to be at your best. Why would you not at least try to get _some_ rest?”

For a second I thought I saw something like anger flash over his face, but he was back to his relaxed, if somewhat worn down expression a second later. 

“Just a project. Nothing big. I’ll show you later.” 

And that was definitely a deflection. Curiouser and curiouser. 

“Ok….Well breakfast first then. Is the bug--”

“They cut the signal before I could trace it, so I destroyed the thing. No reason to keep it around after that.”

Bummer. I was hoping if we could find out where Shield was based nearby we could get a good drop on them. Maybe send Iron Man in to say ‘Hi’. 

Guess we’d just have to make an appointment the old fashioned way then, lame. Better get Jarvis on that. 

“Ok, well, I’m going to make breakfast. You are going to take a shower, and then we are going to work on putting together those dossiers for Shield. Plan?”

“Yup,” he said, immediately starting to unbutton his pants. Mercy, the man didn’t have a modest bone in his body. I turned to leave before the temptation to get my eye-full overcame me. But the sound of Tony catching himself on the doorframe and calling out a small _‘Oh’_ as he remembered something pulled me up short, “and don’t turn on the TV.”

The door closed behind him, on that ominous note. And I hope he was pleased with himself, leaving me in suspense like that. As if I wasn’t curious enough about what the media response to last night would be. 

 

\----------------

 

Despite his obscenely well-equipped bathroom, long, luxurious showers were apparently too much of a time sink for Tony Stark. I had barely finished cutting up the peppers and cracking the eggs when he leaned around the door frame, fiddling with something on his phone.

“Well, isn’t this domestic. You know when you said breakfast I assumed you meant you’d turn on the coffee machine...cut a grapefruit in half or something. Maybe butter some toast if you were feeling fancy. Should I be worried? You’ve never cooked for me before. Is it because we’re going steady now? What’s your ring size? You know, they _say_ three months salary, but I don’t really think they had billionaires in mind when they made that rule. Do you want to hyphenate? I’m thinking a june wedding would be nice.”

“Are you done?” 

I got in when he paused for breath, trying to sound annoyed despite the laughter in my voice as I sprinkled some cheese into the pans. 

“Maybe. Almost.”

“You can have one more, Tony. Then we actually have to get serious.”

“Or what, you’ll make me sleep on the couch?” he laughed, gesturing to the plush monstrosity in the room behind him, rolling his eyes. 

“Solid finish.”

“I try.”

I flipped the omelets and tapped on the screen of my phone, bringing up the data Jarvis had collected and signaling for him to project it on the far wall. 

Maya Hansen was up first. 

“Hey, she looks familiar.”

“She should, you slept with her.”

“I slept with a botanist?” 

I laughed, despite myself. Remembering her outraged response when Tony had called her just that in the second Iron Man movie. 

“I think she’s a little bit more than that, Tony.” 

He shrugged and made a noncommittal noise, clearly unconvinced. He waved lazily through the data Jarvis had collected on her. 

“This all seems pretty unimpressive. What’d she do to get put on your list?”

Wow, I’d hate to see what he’d have to say about a file on my old life if he found several degrees and field expanding research ‘pretty unimpressive’. 

“She made a serum that gives people superpowers...and then makes them blow up.”

“No shit?”

“No shit. It’s meant to eventually make it so people are immune to all diseases. Basically give humans an insane healing factor.”

I paused. Unsure how to continue. I didn’t want him to think Maya was all evil, but I was a sucker for morally grey characters…..

Not that Maya Hansen was a character anymore.

“Buuuut, She’s working with someone pretty evil, or will be, I’m actually not sure of the timeline on that. Shield could certainly use her brain, not that that’s necessarily a good thing….and I know that you were, or are able to stabilize her serum so it doesn’t kill people. Actually I’m pretty sure that if we just reached out to her through normal channels she’d change sides pretty easily. Killian probably wouldn’t be happy about it though.”

“Killian?”

“Aldrich Killian. Very Evil. Also someone you’ve met, but he’s actually not on our list. He wouldn’t be useful to Shield so he isn’t useful to us. Not right now anyways. We--er-- _you_ can take him out as Iron Man later.”

I took a quick break to plate the omelets while Tony typed something furiously on his phone, his brow furrowed tightly in concentration. I knew better than to interrupt when he had his ‘serious science’ face on so I just slid his plate towards him along with a fork and went to get us both coffee. Hopefully whatever epiphany he’d just had wouldn’t take too long to write down. 

…...no such luck.

After a minute or two of waiting patiently I took my own food out into the living room.

Not having anything to do was a bad state for me right now -- and I ended up more or less having a staring contest with the remote. The curiosity was eating me alive. The idea that actual news channels were probably reporting on **me** , positive or not, true or not, was practically more surreal than the idea of reality jumping, or living with an actual superhero.

I had to see it with my own eyes. 

I gave in and reached for the remote. 

“Uh-uhn. You put that down. Jarvis, do not let her turn that on.” 

I sighed and dropped the offending technology. Putting my hands up in defeat. 

“You know, Tony, I’m going to see it eventually. It’s not like you can keep me off the internet.” 

His eyebrows rose, with an ‘oh yea, try me’ look. 

“You’d be surprised. Anyways, this next guy, Vanko. Why do I feel like I know that name?”

“Probably because you do? Your father fucked _his_ father over in a pretty fantastic way. I think they worked on the original arc reactor project together, but Howard somehow cut him out of getting any of the credit? Anyways, he has a _huge_ revenge boner for you. Builds his own suit, complete with reactor when his father dies. Probably wouldn’t actually have been much of a threat but he catches you at a pretty vulnerable time -- well, would have caught. He’s brilliant though. Part of me is hoping Shield can offer him something, that he won’t have to turn out to be a bad guy. It’s such a waste…..” 

“Would it kill you to be slightly less sympathetic to my -- and I’m just going to borrow an appropriate comic book term here -- rogues gallery? I mean, I’m sure he’s lovely, but the guy is going to try to kill me.” It’s a teasing tone, but something about it is a little forced. Like Tony might actually be a little bothered by my open sympathy for his villains. Weird, I would have thought he would be a sucker for a good redemption story. All things considered. 

I try to keep my disappointment in his attitude off my face. 

“All right then, how about we look at a friendly face. Jarvis, did you find anything on Bruce Banner? He's somewhere Spanish speaking I think…”

“ _Doctor_ Bruce Banner?”

“Mhmmm.”

“He’s Brilliant.” and wow, Tony sounded genuinely excited about this, “I’ve read most of his work. But isn’t he --”

“Dead? Probably officially. General Ross is an asshole. Banner was working on a secret military project trying to recreate the Super Soldier serum, you know, Project Rebirth? Tried using Gamma radiation.”

“And what? He’s on the run with the formula?”

I bit out a harsh laugh.

“Man, do I fucking wish that were the case. No. He….it didn’t work. Or it _did_ , but not...the right way. He’s like Dr. Jekyll now. He loses control and turns into this… well _‘enormous green rage monster’_ I think was your phrasing of choice. ”

I paused for a moment and tried to give Tony some time to absorb the information. He winced a bit, maybe at his own callous words or maybe just at the idea of what Banner was going through. 

Maybe I shouldn’t have included him in this. It was a big information dump. Probably a lot of stress. Keeping him in the dark felt like lying though, and I was already having to do an uncomfortable amount of that.

“Banner is a good person, even with the Hulk. And he _can_ learn to control it, to some extent. He’s a valuable teammate, nearly indestructible and brilliant in the lab. Shield would find out about him pretty soon anyways, Banner is due for an appearance back in New York sometime soon. I’d like to get our hands on him before that, Ross tries to capture him and it’s pretty catastrophic for everyone.”

I did a quick flip through the pages of Jarvis’ information, hoping to see something, anything about Banner’s current location. 

Nothing.  
_Fuck._

“Plus, you two will be good frie---”

I hit the last page of the file. Jarvis had sorted the pages by redundancy, so the least vital information came last. This page was practically just a picture, a full name and a date of birth. 

There may have been other pictures on the pages I’d flipped through. In fact, I was almost sure there had been. Shots of Dr. Banner at science conventions and working in the lab. But I hadn’t stopped to look at them, I’d been focused on the information.

But this was just a headshot, taking up almost the whole screen. 

I couldn’t _not_ look at it -- and holy shit.

I just stared dumbly for a few moments, trying to figure out what else this affected. It felt like a bad thing, just reflexively. Everything I couldn’t predict was definitely a _bad thing._

“Tony, do you have a picture of Rhodey?”

“What, why?”

“Jarvis, can you pull up a recent picture of Colonel Rhodes. _Now_ please.” 

Yup. That was definitely not Don Cheadle. Fuck me. How was this not a thing I had even considered. 

Would it change things in the future, I mean, it’s just a cosmetic difference, right? Who gives a shit if it’s Ed Norton’s face. He’ll still be the same Bruce Banner from the movies, the actors don’t effect the writing. Right?

_Right?_

I just came from a world where people's faces didn’t _change_ and it was fucking hard to conceptualize that _this_ was the same character as Mark Ruffalo. That we could still go through the same song and dance of the Avengers, we could still have the Hulk; that he might say the same lines and do the same things just he would look….like that.

I took a big gulp of my coffee and tried to tell myself this didn’t matter, that I was being an idiot over nothing.

Tony was looking at me like I’d grown a second head. 

“So, are you going to tell me what that was about, or do you want me to leave you and your panic attack alone?”

“It’s nothing.”

A raised eyebrow and a pointed look at the way my leg was bouncing neaurotically against the floor was all it took to change my story. 

“Ok, fine, it’s obviously not _nothing._ But I was just...surprised. It probably won’t change anything, I was just expecting…”

I ran a hand agitatedly through my hair. 

“You don’t really want to know Tony.”

“Try me.”

I waved my hands around for a second, trying to figure out how to phrase this in a less blunt way. But I figured, fuck it, Tony knew where I came from. We hadn’t come out an directly talked about it, but it wasn’t something we could dance around forever. Still...

“Tony…”

“Come on, I can take it.”

Fine. _Fuck it._

“They got recast. Ok? Those two, the actors, I was expecting them to look different...because they got recast. Early on.”

His smile got tight, closed off. But otherwise he didn’t react at all. Yea, why did I even…

I should have just shut up about it. Made some excuse or moved on to the other files. 

“Tony, we talked about this, I told you--”

“Yup, fictional creature.” he forced a chuckle, though his voice sounded thin and strained. “I’m totally ok with it, or trying to be. Your reality sounds boring anyways. But -- here’s the thing -- I was thinking comic book, or, Hey! Maybe a kick-ass Sci-Fi trilogy. So you’re kind of throwing me for a loop here.”

Wait. What?

Was he seriously trying to make a joke about this? God, this man. 

“Ok. let me get this straight--”

“Langley, focus. I need you to tell me I’m not a movie adaptation. Please. Movie adaptations are awful. Across the board, it’s a law of the universe, everybody knows that.” 

Ok, that startled a laugh out of me, if nothing else. Even if he was being weirdly intense about it. At least I knew he wasn’t actually upset. 

“Anyways, it isn’t a big deal. I should have seen it coming. So what? Rhodey and Bruce look a little different. We’ll deal. It’ll be a little, I dunno, uncanny valley,” it was the wrong term, sure, but it weirdly fit the feeling I was experiencing, “for a while. I’ll get over it. You don’t need to worry about it.”

I purposely busied myself with the tablet for a minute. Trying to give Tony a minute to get himself together so we could move past this, like we had to. It was an elephant in the room that was glued to the floor. 

Basically we just had to learn not to look, think, or talk about it. Since it wasn’t going away. Totally healthy coping mechanisms. 

“Hey, serious question.” Which, with Tony, meant it was anything but. “I’m a big deal right, a Brad Pitt type? I mean, I can hardly imagine a world where the ladies wouldn’t want a piece of this.” He gestured to his oil stained tank top and badly worn pajama pants.

“Yes, you are truly irresistible in every dimension.” I tried my best to keep my voice flat, “but yea, you definitely have your fan club. I actually knew a girl in college that photoshopped herself into pictures with you, or, er, him. Seems weirder now, somehow. But I'm guessing you've had your own share of crazy fans.”

I let a few awkward seconds pass, waiting to see if he was going to say anything else.

“Ok, now can we please move on?”

His only answer was to throw himself down onto the couch beside me with a sigh, rolling his head over onto my shoulder.

Tony was a very tactile person.  
I generally wasn’t.  
I tried not to misinterpret it. 

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

When Tony set his mind to something his work ethic was a thing of legend. 

We went over the files again and again until he was sure we had all the facts straight and we could prevent a completely united front at our meeting with Shield, whenever that might be. 

I even watched him send off a few emails to some of the scientist-types I had on the list. Offering them jobs or grants to sweep them out from under Shields nose. I had never been more proud. 

Only then did he cautiously retreat into his lab. 

I tried to follow him, inquiring curiously about what he was working on. But I got weirdly stonewalled, and his strangely angry expression from earlier surfaced again, though he was still clearly trying to hide it. 

That was worrying. Obviously. And I would deal with it later, I would. But right now I was going to satisfy the curiosity that had been prickling at me all day. 

I was going to see what the media was saying about me.  
Well, and Tony. But mostly me. 

“Jarvis, has Tony put any, I don’t know, blocks up to stop me from watching the news or searching for articles about last night?”

“He has not, however, I am to inform Mr. Stark if you take any actions to seek out such information.”

Well, _shit._

So basically turn on the news and Tony comes running. Do a google search and Tony comes running. It was like trying to sneak around behind my parents’ back. 

Seriously what the fuck were they saying about me that he didn’t want me seeing so badly? Had he leaked our relationship to the paper or something without asking? I mean, that would be rude, especially since I'd straight out told him I didn’t want that last night. But I was an adult. It’s not like I was going to throw a temper tantrum or anything…

I could take a good insult or twelve. 

Plus, even if we hadn’t officially discussed it, it was clear that the relationship cover story was the way to go. There was really no other way to explain why I was living, traveling, and working constantly attached to Tony’s hip. 

Maybe we could ‘break up’ later once we moved to the tower and I had the other Avengers to canoodle with. But for now it was pretty much here or bust. 

Wait. 

I was a genius. 

“Hey J. You’re on my side right?”

“I’m afraid you are going to have to be more specific, miss.”

“I _mean,_ Tony said you had to alert him if I sought the information out. Right? But what if I just go to a social media site, or something? I mean, someone is bound to be talking about it. It’s the hot gossip. But I’m not _seeking it out_ per say. I’m just…..browsing.”

“Mr. Stark has not placed limits on your regular internet usage.”

Bingo. It pays to have the AI on your side. 

“Thanks, J. You're a peach.”

It took me all of two seconds to find people talking about it on Twitter. 

Jesus Christ, we were a trending topic. Shoot me now. 

There were a good amount of tweets speculating that this was some sort of publicity stunt. That along with not making weapons anymore Tony was also turning over a new leaf romantically and giving monogamy a try. 

Next in line were a chorus of _‘why not me?’_ s from the women of Twitter (and honestly not a small number of men). 

“Pour one out for all the unfucked bimbos that never got a piece.” -- was a winner. 

“One more sugar daddy out of the running. sadface.” -- also one for the history books. 

I favorited both of them. 

It seemed like the internet as a whole had decided I was some drunken one night stand that had gotten pregnant. Honestly, it could be worse. And anyways, that rumor would get put to death all on its own. Since eventually they would have to notice I wasn't getting any bigger. 

I kept scrolling. And scrolling. Honestly it was a bit addictive. But I couldn't see why Tony had been so dead set on hiding this from me. Unless he really thought I just couldn’t take the heat. 

Ok, well, I did have to admit; a lot of them were _rank_ but that was pretty par for the course with celebrity gossip...with any gossip really. 

I kept scrolling, and then.

“Does anyone know who she is?”  
“Yea, Stark’s PR team answered a few questions about it this morning.”

Then a link I couldn't follow without alerting Tony, and a gaggle of outraged comments.

“Wow, that’s low even for Stark. She’s young enough to be his daughter.”

“Didn’t think stark went for the barely legal types, she's still a teenager man, gross”

Um, what?

They weren’t all wrong. I _was_ a lot younger than Tony. But I certainly wasn’t a teenager, and I hadn’t been for a long…. _Time._

Jesus christ. I knew what happened.

 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

“You are the stupidest genius I’ve ever met.” 

My anger simmered out almost immediately when I saw what Tony was up to, leaning back shirtless on a sort of metal gurney, fiddling with his reactor. His eyes were locked on me in shock. Clearly, Jarvis hadn’t warned him that I was coming. 

“What are you….you finished the element?”

He looked over at me with a flash of annoyance, but it was momentary again, and then it was like his strings were cut. He let his head fall back onto the cool metal surface, his hands dropping to rest on his bare chest. 

“Figured it out last night, about the palladium. Couldn’t sleep.” 

Well, shit. It certainly made sense that he was pissed at me then. What didn’t make sense was that he hadn’t confronted me about it. He’d just kept quiet and gone along with my plan, hell, he’d even been perfectly pleasant this morning. We’d been joking around.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” It was all I could say, though I tried to keep my voice gentle, the last thing I wanted to do was sound accusing right now. 

“What the hell was I supposed to say? How dare you save my life?” 

I didn’t know what to say to that. I couldn’t apologize, not genuinely, even though I thought he had a right to be mad. I didn’t regret not telling him, so there was nothing to say that seemed…appropriate.

“I can only imagine what would have happened. With Obie, with this…” he tapped his fingertips harshly against the reactor.

“Do you want me to--”

“No!” I flinched at the echo of his voice in the otherwise quiet room, “Shit, that wasn’t -- I don’t want to know. If I do I’ll just….It’s better if I don’t.”

I felt like I should just turn back around and leave. This was an incredibly private moment I'd just walked in on. I hesitated for too long though, and Tony must have thought I was waiting for him to continue. 

“I can never repay you…” He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. Laughing in the way you laugh when you just don’t know what else to do, “You know I never really understood that phrase before. I can repay anyone. But you, being here at my side through all this, all the problems you've already helped solve and we've barely gotten started….”

I walked closer to him, feeling like I should comfort him, say something. But I was...dumbstruck I guess, caught completely off guard by this sort of raw, emotionally vulnerable Tony I’d never met before. Well, that wasn't entirely true. I just hadn't seen it _in person._

“So am I mad that you didn't tell me about this? Yeah, sure. Totally pissed. But I get why you did it. And I'm grateful.”

“I think I finally get it now. I finally found a debt I can't pay back. And I don’t know how to feel about that.” 

After a few seconds it became clear that was the end of it. He was done, and I didn’t have anything to add. Thank you was hollow. You’re welcome seemed egotistic. It wasn't like he was outright saying he appreciated it anyways. He was clearly conflicted about my meddling on a few levels, and I couldn't do anything but give him as much time as he needed to mull it over.

So I just picked up the new reactor off the table and walked to his side, ready to offer help, if he was ready to accept it. I didn’t know how he’d been planning to do this on his own, maybe he hadn’t, maybe he’d just been having conflicting feelings about asking me for help. 

“Well,” I started, but quickly had to clear my throat. Trying to joke when your eyes are tearing is always a challenge, but this mood was in definite need of lightening. And I could tell Tony desperately wanted this moment to be over. “You could start by telling the media they misprinted my birthday. Since I’m guessing you didn’t stop to think that giving them my actual one --”

I watched realization light up in his eyes. Could practically see the mortification sink in. 

“Would make you seven years younger. Since you’re from the future. Shit. Wasn’t thinking. God, no wonder Pepper went so ‘mother hen’ over you this morning. Nineteen...she must think I’ve lost my goddamn mind.” He made an exaggerated grimacing face, like he couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid. 

“We’ll tell people I was born in ‘81, instead. Call it a typo. I’ll gain a few years, but it’s a totally fixable mistake.”  
I gave him what I hoped was a reassuring smile, even though I still felt shaky at best. I set the new reactor down on the table beside him and reached out tentatively to rest my hand on the old one.

Even though I had been here for months, I had never really gotten a good look at it. Sure, I’d seen the outline of it through clothes. But it wasn’t like Tony walked around the house shirtless.

And even if he had...it wasn’t like I would have stared. Much.

Now I was touching it, surprised at the coolness of it beneath my fingers -- and feeling the rush of power and trust that I had like this. I was getting a little heady with it...and maybe a few other things that I wasn’t ready to think about. 

There might have been a bit of blushing when I realized I was staring... Entranced by the soft glow pouring out between my fingers. God, could this whole scene get more awkward? I wasn’t built to handle this kind of intensity. Gesturing to the edges of the reactor I tried to excuse myself, flimsily, but… 

Anything to stop him from staring back at me like that. 

“How do I do this? I mean, I kind of know. Don’t let the wire touch the sides. Don’t pull out the magnet at the end. Beware the smelly puss. But...how do I…”

It took genuine effort not to flinch back as his hand closed around mine, guiding me through the release mechanism. 

Jesus Christ. I'd had less intimate sex. Quite sure Tony had too.

_Breathe,_ Langley.

“Normally I’ll be able to do this myself,” he was saying, casual as anything.

There was a quick _‘click-hiss’_ and the reactor came loose, “but since the core has changed, we need to change out a few of the…” he gestured to the stuff coming off the bottom of the reactor I was holding, seeming momentarily lost for words “...well, the inner-bits, you wouldn’t understand. Don’t worry, from now on it will be plug-and-play. Unless I do another significant redesign anyways.” 

My insides were squirming like crazy, but I think I managed to nod and smile. This was going to be simple, and I was sure I wouldn’t fuck it up. Still, I was very _very_ aware of what would happen if I did. 

I held my breath as I guided the entirety of the old reactor out without hurting him, hurrying to toss it aside as I rushed to get the second one ready. I wasn’t sure how much time we had but I didn’t want to push it.

“Woah, woah..” Tony’s hands came up to steady mine, looking a little confused and worried. Oh yea, right, the only reason things went so badly when this happened in the movie was because Pepper didn’t follow the instructions. 

So we had time, Tony wouldn’t go into cardiac arrest. Well, not right away, anyways. We still probably didn’t have all day. 

“Sorry.” I said solemnly, collecting myself as I attempted to connect the cables in the cramped space. Cursing my clumsy fingers all the time and biting back incredibly inappropriate fisting jokes. Thanks brain.

It felt like I was taking waaay too long, and I was so very very aware of the beeping of Tony’s heart on the monitor steadily speeding up. Sighing with heavy relief when I felt the last wire snap into place and I locked the body of the reactor in.

Finally I let myself look up at his face, locking eyes with him as I slowly pulled away. Letting my hands rest just for a moment on the warmth of his chest because...well, it was weirder if I was in a hurry to pull away. Also, I was kind of enjoying the intimacy. 

So I had a crush, sue me. 

“You good?”

“Yup, Golden.”

Excellent. Barely any awkwardness left at all. I helped him remove the heart censors and then moved to wash my hands, since they were a bit sticky from the proceedings. 

It seemed like Tony wasn’t quite done surprising me for the day though.

“We should set a date.”

“For…?”

“After last night the board thought….well, it’s why Pepper was over here so early. They want us to do the whole media song and dance. Get some good publicity. Help the stocks recover. Former playboy turns over new leaf, that stuff really sells.”

I fought the urge to groan. How did this go downhill so fast. Last night he’d been sweet and understanding about my aversion to being in the spotlight. And now it was a full about turn. Was he really this selfish? I knew the answer was ‘no’, kind of. To his friends Tony could be amazingly generous and kind. But I was still somewhat unsure where I ranked to him in that regard.

Not quite high enough, apparently. 

Still, I refused to start a fight over this. Call it a character flaw if you want, but I tended to be non-confrontational to a fault. Besides, I could understand where he was coming from. SI was important to him and this could really help. 

Plus, honestly. Who was I kidding -- ‘boo-hoo, I have to pretend to be dating America’s most eligible bachelor. Fancy parties and luxurious vacations, how will I ever cope?’

“So what, we have to go on talk shows or something? Do interviews?”

“Nah. Nothing that grim. Just some public appearances and enough soundbites for the gossip rags to get a good spin on. You can pick and choose what you want. I’ll have Jarvis send you a list of upcoming events, something is bound to appeal to you.”

Ok. I could do that.

“What about Halloween?”

“What?”

“I mean, it’s only a few days away. So maybe that’s too soon. But I’ve always loved Halloween. And I bet billionaires do it better.” I winked, trying to make it clear I was joking...but also totally not. 

“Costumes or no costumes?”

“Definitely costumes.”

“Ok, we can do that. Jarvis, send her a list of suitable events. And get back to me soon on costume ideas, we need to match and I don't half-ass Halloween.”

This was good. It would be fun, or at least parts of it would be. There just wasn't a _point_ to it. I just had this nagging feeling inside me that I wasn’t supposed to be doing this. That I was here to _fix_ things, not go to parties and swoon over an unattainable man. 

I guess there was only so many hours I could sit around planning for the future before I started to go crazy. 

“Ok, sounds great.”

“Great.” Tony echoed, already starting to get distracted tinkering with what looked like the first prototype of the portable suit. “And listen, I know you wanted to avoid this. So…”

“So thanks, so I appreciate it, you’re a gem?”

“You read my mind, honeybear.”

I forced a laugh to cover my actual fluster over the ridiculous petname and hurried myself up the stairs to see if Jarvis had managed to wrangle us an appointment date with Shield yet. 

 

\-----------------------------

 

Shield still hadn’t responded. I was starting to get worried.

Once we'd reached the ‘planting bugs’ stage of the relationship I'd sort of thought things were starting to get serious. 

The fact that they were now dodging our attempts to communicate through normal channels couldn't mean anything good.

I took a long, relaxing bath and went to sleep just as anxious as I'd been before. 

 

\-----------------------------------

 

The nightmare woke me up. Or I think it did. Maybe it was the silence. The constant hum of technology throughout the mansion had been muted somehow. I couldn't hear a storm outside, and the dim light coming in from the hall proved there was no power outage.

I was drenched with sweat and my left arm was almost entirely immobilized, it was so twisted up in the covers. I must have really been flailing, but Jarvis hadn’t intervened?

That seemed...wrong, somehow.

A chill went up my spine that I tried hard to ignore. I had that creeping certainty that something was just _off_ that you get sometimes after watching a horror movie. Where your body is just so certain that something bad is about to happen even though you know rationally that everything is fine. 

I took a quick shower, looking over my shoulder the entire time. Then changed my clothes and got back into bed.

But I couldn’t relax.

Goddamit, this was stupid. 

“Jarvis, I know I’m crazy but can you just tell me the house is secure or something so I can calm down and get the fuck back to sleep?”

I waited for the response for about ten seconds before I realized it wasn’t coming, and something was really wrong. 

Shit. Fuck. Shit. 

Was Tony still awake? Could he even get into the suit if Jarvis was down? This was extremely not good. 

I took a quick look around my room to see if there was anything I could grab as a weapon. Which of course there wasn’t. Fucking simplistic modern decor. Fuck. Ok. Breathe. I just needed to open the door and get out. Get to Tony. 

He might not even know what was happening. I couldn’t just barricade myself in here and hope for the best just because I was a little scared.

Maybe more than a little.

This could be the start of my first actual fight. I might get shot at, I might get seriously hurt. But I had to do it.

I pushed the door open with my foot and peered around the corner.

And immediately became almost twice as confused. 

There was almost no light on anywhere anymore, and I wasn’t going to risk anything by turning on more. But that was definitely a Shield Agent, unconscious -- god, I hoped he was fucking unconcious -- on the ground, barely five feet from my room. 

What the _fuck_ was going on?

I had to get to Tony. I just repeated that to myself over and over as I creeped along the walls, cutting unnecessarily through the kitchen to grab a weapon and almost tripping over another downed agent in the process. 

My teeth started chattering, I was shaking so hard with anxiety. So I took a second to try and calm down, I couldn’t afford to make any extra noise right now.

I tried to stay as low as I could without crawling as I turned the corner into the living room. I wanted to be able to run if someone -- or something -- spotted me. About halfway to the stairs I caught a bit of movement out of the corner of my eye and spun towards it, holding my pathetic little kitchen knife out as if it could possibly do any damage to someone wearing body armor. 

“Tony?” I gasped out, relaxing considerably at the same time I clasped a hand over my mouth as if I could take back the words that had been surprised out of me. 

He didn’t even react, just stared at me as if he’d never even seen me before. His head tilting a little like if he just looked at me in the right angle I would suddenly start making sense. It was almost creepy, like Tony’s face matched with someone else's body language. 

Was he hurt?  
I inched closer, and so did he. A smirk steadily growing on his lips that almost reminded me of..

“Hey!” my eyes snapped to the staircase immediately. Tony -- _another_ Tony -- was standing at the foot of the stairs with a half assembled Iron Man gauntlet over one hand. Repulsor charging. Eyes locked murderously on his copy. 

I took a step back. The doppelganger followed, looking totally unbothered by our interruption. 

“Stop right there, face off.” Tony sounded plenty menacing, but he wasn’t fooling me, and it didn’t look like he was fooling his evil twin either. Without the HUI of the suit's helmet there was no way he would take a shot like this. We were too close together, Tony wouldn’t risk hitting me. The repulsor was an empty threat. 

“I have a message for you.” The copy finally spoke, less than an arm's length away now, and all the more disturbing for it. “But we must speak privately.”

“Like hell.” Tony spat, we both ignored him.

“That’s why you’re here? Just to deliver a message.”

“That’s why I always would have come. But no. It seemed apropos, considering you warned _us_ of an invasion, to intervene when you faced one of your own. Asgard is no longer in your debt.”

And there it was. I couldn’t ignore what was happening any longer. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably….

_“Loki.”_

Oh god, that creepy, self-satisfied grin looked terrifying on Tony’s face. Luckily it wasn’t there for long, the image before me flickering and dissolving until a different man stood before me. One I was no less familiar with, but significantly less happy to see.

Far off to my right I heard Tony cursing up a blue streak under his breath, and I was inclined to agree. As someone also officially encountering magic for the first time I had to say I was not a fan. My brain seemed to be actively trying to reject what it had just seen. 

“So, I guess this means Heimdall got my message?”

His smile only got wider, but he didn’t acknowledge my question in any other way, instead looking me over rather intently -- like I was of the greatest interest to him. I took a step backwards. His smile fell. 

“You fear me, still?”

“Well, you could squash me like a bug, so I don’t think that’s unreasonable.”

He huffed out a little laugh and took another step towards me, I took another step back. Letting out a squeak when my thigh clipped the arm of the sofa and I had to scramble to keep my balance.

“No, perhaps not. But I am not my brother. I do not kill for sport.”

Ironic, considering some of his future choices, but people can change. Or alien demi-gods can change, as the case may be.

I just nodded, trying to force a smile that I’m sure looked horrifying, considering my current emotional state. 

“Ok. But I mean, you guys have magic, right? I mean, you’ve got to have a ton of ways to deliver messages other than sneaking up on people? Couldn’t you just have beamed me up?” 

“Not that I’m not grateful for the assist with the…” I gestured to the far hallway, where I could see the foot of another downed Shield agent sticking out from a doorway. 

“You are just as interesting as I had hoped.” 

“That’s not an answer.” Tony spoke up again, finally. He was a lot closer now, but he’d lowered the repulsor, and seemed to be watching me closely for queues. 

“Other methods _were_ attempted.”

“But…”

“They did not work.” His smile was a terrifying thing again, with teeth. 

“I don’t understand.” 

Until this moment exactly, an argument could have been made that most everything threatening about Loki was in my head. That he honestly had just come to help, and that I was just projecting evil attributes onto him because I knew what he might become.

Except I was almost entirely sure that there was no way to innocently explain this sort of circling. The kind of predatory behavior displayed by large cats was never copied by people with pure intentions. 

This was villain behavior 101. 

“Midgardians are dull, ugly things. Inside and out. Their essence is dim and putrid, souring the world around it.”

Tony made an offended sort of grunt but thankfully managed to hold his tongue.

Loki ignored him completely. 

I hoped the _‘do you have a point, asshole?’_ was strongly enough implied by my facial expression. Since I didn’t have the balls to actually say it out loud. 

Another cruel laugh. “I was not including you.”

“Well, I am human, so..”

“Are you?”

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?” I spat back, aware that I was sounding incredibly defensive about this. But seriously, what the fuck? 

“Because _you_ are not dull. Your essence is pulsing, ominous and powerful. It distorts everything it touches. You are a black hole.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Thanks? It didn’t really sound like a compliment, anymore than ‘you aren’t ugly’ would have been. 

“Well, maybe that’s just what humans from my dimension are like? It doesn’t mean any--”

There was a loud sound, like an engine starting up, and the lights all flickered for a moment. 

“Jarvis is coming back online.”

A hand closed firmly around my wrist, almost hard enough to hurt, and pulled me close. Tony shouted something but I was more focused on the face only inches away from mine, speaking in a calm but intense voice. Only for my ears to hear. 

“Frigga sends her thanks, and a warning.” I couldn’t help but tense up at that, but after everything else I’d just heard, I didn’t feel threatened, just confused. It was clear to me now that some serious shit had gone down in Asgard after I sent my message. And I would very much like to find out what. 

“Your ability to alter fate is unlike anything we have seen, and already she has seen the effects of your machinations in her visions. Still, she has asked me to caution you. Fate is a powerful force, and it will try to correct itself. What it has done in our realm, it will certainly do in yours. You should be careful.”

“Is that all?” I said, like that wasn’t a huge smack in the face. Did that mean I couldn’t really change anything? But Obi was already behind bars. Tony was already safe from the palladium. Maybe just some things? I had so many questions. And no time to ask them. 

Loki nodded, gave a long hard look in Tony’s direction, and then gently released my wrist. Disappearing in a brilliant flash of light. 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to re-write this chapter three times. It is my child. I love it, but it is fucking dead to me. It kept coming out waaaay too serious and I’m trying to keep this whole thing kind of light hearted for now. Also I’m adding the unreliable narrator tag because holy shit is she wrong about her interpretation of some things.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit hits the fan and I use way too much foreshadowing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if the moments of crack take anyone out of the story.
> 
> They're too much fun for me to pass up.

As soon as Loki’s magic dimmed Tony was on his way over to me, his face alight with a glorious mix of righteous fury and concern. 

A soft, _disturbingly_ normal knock on the door brought him up short. 

Immediately, Tony gestured sharply to Jarvis’ closest sensor and the feed from the front door security camera popped up. _Fury_. Because of fucking course Fury was here. Hands calmly folded behind his back like this was just a friendly visit, his one eye fixed steadily on the lens.

“Sorry, we’re closed.” and wow, the sheer menace that Tony managed to convey in those few syllables almost intimidated _me._

"I have something you need to see, Stark.”

Tony stiffened and puffed up, stepping in front of me as if Fury could somehow see him -- and hell, maybe he could. I wouldn’t really put anything past Nick Fury. 

“Oh, well that explains everything. Is that why you broke into my house, disabled my AI? You just wanted to drop off a present? You _really_ shouldn’t have.”

I was more scared now than I ever had been in front of Loki. I felt cold and sweaty all over, faintly like I was going to be sick. Bravery thy name is Langley. 

Careful not to startle, I stepped even closer to Tony, putting one hand on his waist to steady myself. This close I could hear the soft hum of the repulsor, still ready to fire. Maybe that was what gave me the courage, stupid as it was, to speak up to Fury.

“Leave us alone, Fury. Jarvis already called the police.”

Immediately I knew how ignorant I sounded. Fury shook his head and laughed. Not a nice, jolly laugh either, a cruel laugh. Tony was all but face palming in response. 

“And how do you think that is going to go down, _exactly_? Shield is a government agency, _Miss._ Bowen. Somehow, I don't see an arrest warrant in my future. Do you?”

Right. OK. Of course. 

Stupid of me.

“Sorry.” I whispered to Tony, he reached back and gave my hip and awkward squeeze in response, but said nothing. It was supposed to be reassuring, I think. Maybe it even _was_ , and I was just too busy being panicked to notice.

Fury took what seemed to be a flash drive out of his pocket and waved it at the camera, almost tauntingly.

No, _definitely_ tauntingly. 

“Let me come in and retrieve my men, _peacefully._ And I’ll give you this. Free of charge.”

“It’s not free of charge if you’re already asking for something in return.” 

Ohh, Tony:1, Fury: 0. 

“It’s a good deal.”

“And why should we trust you?”

“You shouldn’t.”

“Very reassuring.”

“Going once.”

“What’s on the flashdrive?”

“Going twice.”

“If it’s nudes, I’m going to have to pass. You’re not really my type. ”

“Going thre--”

“ _Jarvis._ ”

There was the resounding sound of a lock clicking open and the front door swung open.

Nick Fury stepped through.

I wanted to slap the self-satisfied expression off his smug fucking face, but I was too terrified to even unclench my hand from the side of Tony’s shirt. Some fucking hero I was. 

Can’t wait to see how I do in an actual fucking fight. 

“Tony, we should go.” I leaned up to whisper urgently into his ear. “He can just get his men and leave it. We should go downstairs, put the lab in lockdown.” 

The cameras Jarvis was displaying went into several split screens as a squad of agents followed Nick inside and started gathering up their fallen comrades. The image made my skin crawl.

I had felt safe here. I think Tony had too. Sure, we both knew there were terrible things outside these walls that we would eventually have to face. But inside...this was our _home._

It didn’t feel like that anymore. 

“ _You_ should.” he answered, I immediately opened my mouth to argue, but he cut me off. “No, listen. For once, just let me call the shots. Jarvis is going to get my jet ready. I don’t care who he has to wake up or bribe, we are off the runway before dawn. I am not spending another night in this place, not without a major security upgrade, anyways.”

I nodded, pressing my face in against his back, still hesitant to go. Even if I was mostly sure that Nick wouldn’t hurt him it was still against all my protective instincts to leave them alone together. If anything happened to Tony...

“Listen to me, Langley. _Go downstairs._ Get Jarvis to help you pack up all the important stuff from the lab, we can buy everything else when we get there. Start the car. Wipe the hard drives, backup anything important. Be _completely_ ready to go. I’ll meet you.”

“But you--”

“Twenty minutes tops. Go!” The push he gave me was anything but rough, but it was enough to get me going. 

I tripped over my feet as I hurried down the stairs to the lab. Thinking somewhat hysterically that almost three months ago I had arrived here, confused and scared, wearing only my pajamas. 

And I was about to leave here just the same. 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

“Where are we going?”

I finally worked up the nerve to break the silence in the car. 

Tony had been agitated but tight lipped since the moment he’d joined me downstairs. Merely helping me lift some of the heavier lab equipment into the trunk before getting in the driver's seat and telling me to buckle up, he was going to break a few speeding laws.

“New York.”

“To the Tower? I guess that’s more secure.”

“The tower? What tower?”

“Stark...tower?” I said, already realizing my mistake. This was 2010, Stark Tower hadn’t been built yet. And by all accounts probably wouldn’t be. At least, if I was able to prevent the large scale destruction Vanko would cause at the expo. Since that was what prompted Tony to originally begin construction in the first place. 

Tony gave me an overly critical look, like he knew what kind of slip up I’d just had. But was just too worn out from the night we’d had to pursue the topic any further.

“No.” he finally said, “There’s an old family mansion there. It’s in Manhattan. Kinda old-fashioned but it should be well-kept year round and have a skeleton crew….which is more than I can say for my other properties.”

“What about Jarvis, can he….come?”

Probably not a totally relevant question. I knew that given time Tony could install Jarvis pretty much anywhere, and I’d at least always be able to access him through my phone….but I’d gotten used to Jarvis while living at the mansion. He was my friend. The idea of leaving him behind, even only temporarily, didn’t sit well with me.

Tony hemmed and hawed for a moment before answering that one. 

“Kind of. There’ll be a bit of an installment process, but there’s an old -- well, top of the line, really, for it's time -- security system wired all through the house that Jarvis can use. And of course I’ll have my Dad’s old lab, plenty of room for both of us to set up in there.”

Of course, I only latched onto one fact in that information dump. 

“Wait a second, your parents lived here?”

“Well, yea. I did too, growing up. The times I wasn’t away at boarding school, anyways.” 

And now was definitely not the time for me to get started on Howard Stark. I had hated the bastard enough when he was fictional for the way he treated Tony. Now my anger was red-hot with teeth.

I made a point of pushing it to the back of my mind, there would be a time and a place for addressing that fucking hornet's nest of feelings. Instead I tried to quiet my mind, distracting myself by making plans for everything I would need to do in the next few days. 

“So…”

Tony finally started again, after the silence had drawn out long enough. This was the first time in a long time I could remember silence between us being tense or awkward...or, anything but companionable really. 

It sucked.

“Anything you want to tell me about Snape? You knew him? He certainly knew you.” 

“ _Snape_ , really?”

“Long black hair, green robes, magic. Creepy motherfucker. Seems appropriate.”

I let myself laugh. Trying to calm us both down.

“His name is Loki. And _yes_ , before you ask. Loki like the Norse god of mischief. Apparently a bunch of aliens came down thousands of years ago to help out with some...well, frankly some crazy shit, and that's how we got at least one mythology. So...the history channel got one thing kind of right. Who knew?”

“So he’s one of the big players? A hero, like me? Didn’t really seem like the type.”

He’s not. I wanted to say. He’s a villain. But that wasn’t true yet. If I cast Loki in that roll too early I was afraid I might somehow force his hand. Clearly he had at least an academic interest in me. Given the opportunity maybe I could do something to push him in a better direction. 

Not that I had any idea when or if I would see him again.

“Jury’s out.” I shrugged, trying to sound way more nonchalant about it than I actually felt. “I’d put him more in the chaotic-neutral category than anywhere else. Loki is out for Loki. I don’t think he has any real inclinations towards good _or_ evil. At least not right now.”

I gave that a moment to sink in. I’m sure Tony could see right through my deflection, but I doubted he would push the subject for now. 

“He’s also a prince.”

“That would explain the aura of entitlement.”

“You’re one to talk.” I jabbed, shooting him a smile to make it extra clear that it was a good-natured sort of thing. 

“So you know him, that makes sense. But he clearly knew you, too. Have you been passing notes behind my back? I’m hurt. I know I don’t have much to offer, I mean I’m certainly no alien prince, but if you were looking to upgrade --”

“Ha ha _ha._ I get it, you’re hilarious.” 

And wow, was I an asshole, because as much as I’m sure Tony was actually at least partly joking.

Underneath that he did look hurt. 

“You know I wouldn’t leave you, right?” I said after a moment, wondering if it was too honest or too forward -- but still feeling like it needed to be said.

Tony didn’t reply, but I saw his knuckles tighten to white on the steering wheel as he stared ahead into the night.

I probably should have said more, but I didn’t. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The plane was much bigger than I remembered, and just for the two of us.

“No stripper flight attendants this time?” I joked when the door of the plane finally closed behind us

“Sorry to disappoint you.” Was the only response I got, mumbled while staring at his phone. He’d been practically entranced by the damn thing since we’d left the car. I knew he was just setting things in order, probably letting the staff know that we were going to be arriving or something. Still, he’d barely even looked at me. 

“Well, it is a bit of a bummer. A lap dance always brightens the mood.”

Since he was ~~n’t going to talk to me~~ busy, I took my laptop out and started ordering new clothes, bathing products, specific snacks I liked, and some that Tony did...I doubted he would have time to do this for himself anytime soon so I tried to cover both of our bases. 

With my new casting as Tony’s girlfriend I was going to need a brand new wardrobe, designer clothes, brand name 5-inch heels, that sort of thing. 

Jarvis could pick it all out. I wasn’t interested. He had my measurements and I’m sure he had some sort of advanced algorithm that could tell what colors looked best with my skintone or something. 

Honestly it was amazing how spoiled a girl could become in only a few short months. 

I was so absorbed in shopping I hadn’t even noticed the plane taking off, but when I finally looked up from the screen we were in the air. 

And Tony was peering over my shoulder with an exaggerated look of shock on his face. Of course, _that_ was what Tony would catch me looking at. I rolled my eyes and snapped the laptop closed with attitude. 

“Don’t get excited, it’s not for you.” It was meant to be a joke, but the tension of the night made it come out just plain snippy. And all I got was a pained smile before Tony took a seat beside me and plugged the flash drive into a port that seemed to be part of the actual plane. 

“Let’s see what Fury gave us, huh?”

Not much, seemed to be the answer. 

There were only a handful of files on the damned thing, a couple image files, all crappy quality. A short video clip, equally crappy. And a text document.

Tony played the video first. It was grainy and almost impossible to make out. No audio decipherable over the roar of the wind. Whoever was filming clearly was prioritizing remaining in cover over getting a good shot. 

But I recognized those men, and from Tony’s sharp intake of breathe next to me, clearly he did too. 

“Raza..” was that the man’s name? I wasn’t aware they even had names. In the movie they were just...the people who held Tony captive. Who tortured him. They were just the ones in charge. Were they ever given names? Or did they only have names here because this was _real._

I’d assumed they’d be dead by now. Tony had hit enough of the Ten Rings bases that they should be mostly wiped out. But he’d survived somehow. Long enough to make this video at least. 

Obadiah killed him in the movie. I realized. So this was kind of my fault. 

Best not to think that way though. 

There wasn’t a time stamp. It could be weeks old. 

The clip lasted a little over five minutes as a group of Ten Rings thugs met a man in a long darkly colored cloak. His features were entirely obscured. It almost looked like something out of a fantasy roleplay, though something about the cut of it was familiar. Like something dancing just on the edges of my memory, if I could just place it…

Money was exchanged, and then men appeared from offscreen carrying the fragments of the Mark I, loading it into a waiting vehicle. A large cylinder shape was also handed over….and it didn’t take a genius to make the leap there. Those had to be the blueprints that Tony had left in the cave.

The pictures were just stills from the video. Cleaned up as much as possible, I’m sure. But they still didn’t seem to contain much new information. 

So….whoever this person was. They had all the information they needed to build a functioning Iron Man suit. Well, everything but the power source. 

Stupid, it had been stupid of me to think that with Obadiah out of the way no one would step in to take his place. Obviously _someone_ would always have wanted the Mark I. To study it, to rebuild it. 

This must be what Loki -- what _Frigga_ meant by Fate trying to correct itself. Obi was in jail. There would never be an Iron Monger. But _someone_ was going to build a suit, Tony was going to have to fight _someone_ ….and all we could try to do was get out ahead of it, try to figure out what was coming. 

As I watched Tony replay and replay. Watched him memorize every second, every frame. Frantically trying to find some detail that would lead him to the man wrapped in shadows.

I wondered what this would mean for everything else to come.

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The car that met us at the airport was driven by Happy Hogan, which brought up a lot of questions, really. 

I guess Tony hadn’t really needed a driver or a bodyguard over the last few months. Had he been in New York working for someone else? Did he live here? Was he on vacation? Did Tony fly him out here once he knew we were coming?

I would have asked, but the tension that had been between me and Tony since Loki disappeared was finally gone. Instead he was laughing, greeting his friend and ignoring me completely as they unloaded our baggage from the cargo hold. 

Awkwardly I stood to the side, unsure if I should offer help or just get in the limo and keep my mouth shut. 

Instead I texted Jarvis on my phone asking if Pepper knew we were in New York...and if the Shield agents had left the house yet. 

‘No, and Yes -- after failing to break into the lab’ were the respective answers. 

I heaved a sigh and asked Jarvis to let her know. Wishing I knew her better so I could call her myself and spare Tony the chewing out I was sure he would get for doing something like this with no warning. 

Actually. 

‘J, can you tell her coming here was my idea. I’d rather she think I’m some spoiled socialite demanding to switch mansions than give the board any more reason to think Tony’s unstable right now.’

‘Done.’

I started typing out a request for an event schedule so I could at least stay productive as I waited when an arm slid itself around my waist and made me startle. Right, happy couple, making a good first impression on one of the three friends. 

I put what I considered to be an appropriately enamored expression on my face before I looked up, leaning into Tony’s grip.

The effort required for the act was shockingly low, I was already more comfortable with Tony than I had been with most of my actual boyfriends. That might be a little sad actually. But… I had known him longer than pretty much anyone else. If you counted my time as a fan, anyways. 

Whatever. I shouldn’t have to make excuses for my pathetic crush. Can’t a girl just be into a guy anymore without explaining herself away. I mean, everyone is into Tony Stark. It’s practically his superpower. Why would I be immune?

I tried not to blush as Happy praised me for being the girl to finally get Tony Stark to settle down. It was best to just smile pleasantly and nod as much as possible in these situations, I was finding. Let people assume things and lead the conversation. The less _active_ lying I had to do the better I felt.

Instead I took the opportunity to flash my conversation with Jarvis discreetly at Tony so we’d be on the same page with Pepper. I didn’t want him getting blindsided if she confronted him with my made-up story later.

He must have liked what he saw because the hand on my side tightened affectionately and he actually dropped a kiss on the top of my head. I flinched away slightly on instinct, but luckily Happy didn’t seem to notice. 

“I don’t know how you did it,” He was still raving about my amazing man-taming skills as we climbed into the back of the limo. “But look at the two of you, you’re adorable. How long have you been together?”

“Three months.” easy one, and the answering in unison thing gave us street cred, but we really needed to work out a good backstory because if anyone asked us some of the harder questions like..

“Good, wow. That’s.. _wow._ Where did you meet?” 

...we weren’t going to have an answer. Like now. My mind was a blank, and I could hear Tony floundering.

“Well, actually, you know, it’s kind of a funny story..”

And no, that wasn’t heading anywhere good. That was heading to one of those cringy scenes from a rom-com where someone adlibs an increasingly ridiculous and unbelievable situation. Except this was real life and. No. Just no.

“Actually, Happy.” I cut him off, feeling rude, but ultimately justified. “I think we could use a little privacy. Tony flew me out here totally last minute and I still owe him a proper thank you. He was working on the plane. You don’t mind, do you?”

Luckily he didn’t take offense, or even try to call me out. To me my voice sounded over the top and almost comically flirty. But Happy just winked and told us to _‘have fun’_ as the partition slid up….and I slid further away from Tony. 

“We _need_ to get our story straight, just for future reference.” 

“Wait, am I not about to get lucky? I feel lied to.”

“Tony, if you keep making those jokes, one day I’m going to call your bluff.”

“Who says I’m bluffing?”

“You’re bluffing, Tony. You wouldn’t actually sleep with me.”

“I notice you aren’t currently testing that theory.” 

“That’s…” 

I shook my head, as depressing as the current conversation was, it was probably better to bow out now. 

“Email Pepper.” I said instead, and went back to scheduling our future press events on my phone.

\----------------------------------------------------------------

 

A few minutes later I faked a decently loud orgasm. 

It was totally worth it for the absolutely appalled look on Tony’s face. 

“What? You’re good at that.” I said, once I’d finished, shrugging as I went back to my work. Feeling weirdly like I’d just won something. 

 

\--------------------------------------------------------------

 

Ten minutes later we arrived at Avengers mansion, because that's what it was after all. A relic of the comic books brought to life right in front of my eyes. I wondered if that meant I should be keeping an eye open for other holdovers. 

Just because it wasn’t in the movies didn’t mean it wasn’t real here. _Clearly._ Maybe I should... 

_Later._ I would worry about that later. 

For now…

God, it was the exact opposite of the bright and welcoming halls of the Malibu mansion. Tall pillars, one of those creepy fucking gates with an _‘S’_ on it. Ancient brickwork, elaborate moulding and covered partially in ivy. You could set a horror movie here and no one would bat an eye. 

If this was what it looked like with upkeep what the fuck would it have looked like if it had just been abandoned.

I didn’t want to live here. I hated it already. I wanted to go home, to a hotel. Fuck. Listen to me whine. It’s a fucking mansion. There are probably actual fucking servants in there waiting for us. 

I really needed to grow the fuck up. 

The gates opened as we approached, even though I didn’t see cameras anywhere. If this place was anything like it was in the comics it was pretty fucking secure already...and I was sure Tony would be making upgrades asap after the night we’d just had. 

Happy pulled us into what must be a thirteen car garage, currently filled with an old sedan and a blue jeep. Staff cars, I guess. This was too weird…

“They don’t live here, don’t worry. Just prepping for our arrival. Stocking the fridge, changing the sheets. That sort of thing.” 

“We could have done that.”

“Speak for yourself, that video had coordinates. As soon as I can reassemble the suit I have places to be.”

“Fine. It’s a long shot, but fine. I could have done it by myself then, honestly Tony it’s--”

“No, no you couldn’t have. I don’t think you’re really getting it. You were on the news. Last night, this morning. Your face is probably in the newspaper, or at least the tabloids. You can’t just run out for groceries. It will turn into an _event._ ” 

I dropped my head back against the seat and groaned. But conceded his point. Following him out of the car. Walking around to unload the trunk. 

“I know it technically just started, but how long do you reckon until all of this dies down?”

“How would I know?” he grunted, swinging one of the large bags of suit components over his shoulder and gesturing to a smaller one for me to take. 

Happy walked up beside us and I glanced nervously over at Tony. Technically I guess there was nothing wrong with having this conversation in front of him. I just felt jumpy. Like the second I relaxed I would slip up somehow. Start screaming secret identities into the void.

“Well, last time you were serious about someone how long did it take the media to stop freaking out about it? I mean, I’m guessing it was a while ago, because...you’re you. No offense. So the current state of social media might make the shit storm a bit worse, but.. _what?_ ”

Both of them were looking at me like I’d started speaking latin backwards or something. I thought it was a decent question. 

“Tony, _what_?”

“I don’t date. Or didn’t. I thought you knew, I mean, that’s why everyone’s going so gaga over you. You’re like a mythical creature to them. Tony Stark’s girlfriend, I’m pretty sure they thought that was an oxymoron.”

 

“Ha ha, Tony, I get it, you’re a playboy, international sex-icon, blah blah blah. But seriously, you’re like forty. You can’t have never dated. Even if it wasn’t public.”

Happy cleared his throat loudly behind us, “Maybe I should go?”

Tony waved him off. I shrugged. He probably thought we were about to start fighting. But I was just genuinely curious. He gave us space anyways. 

Which actually worked out. I lowered my voice and tried a few names I knew from the comics.

“Rumiko? Whitney? Bethany?” I paused, wracking my brain for names from the comics, thinking there must be more than that before I had a thought, “Hey, are you like, totally straight? Because a bunch of people think you banged Tiberius Stone?”

The genuine belly laughter I got in response to that was all the answer I needed. But when he got his breath back, face red tinted and tear tracks running down his cheeks, he said, “No, no, god no, just no...to all of it.”

I thought about pushing the subject. But it was really none of my business, and he looked so happy after that I didn’t want to ruin it by prying into an unpleasant subject. Because as carefree as his life may have been, no one wants to live a life not being loved. Tony can’t really be happy with the fact that he’s never had anyone, no matter how unbothered he’s acting about it.

So, drop it.

Let’s go look at this awful fucking house. 

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

** October 20th -- (Three Days Later) **

 

“No luck?” Tony’s voice broke my concentration, and I had to wonder how long he’d been standing there in the door, watching me practically pull a muscle in my brain as I strained to….

Well, who really knew. 

After Loki’s rather ominous words a few days ago, the idea that I might have some sort of undiscovered power hadn’t stopped nagging at me. Or Tony, as it turned out. So...We’d both decided it was a good idea to at least try.

Until now it hadn't even occurred to me that arriving in this new world might have changed me somehow. That I might be _different._ But it was all I could think about now, Loki's words ringing in my head.

Standing here in the gym trying desperately to use powers I probably didn’t even _have._

A couple times I almost managed to convince myself that I felt...something. Anything. Maybe. But it was probably just my mind playing tricks on me. 

The most surprising part is that I was actually really tired. Who knew standing in a room for hours on end, clenching and unclenching every muscle in your body, just trying to concentrate all your brainpower could be so draining.

Maybe I should try meditation?

“Just a huge waste of time. Whatever Loki thinks he saw in me, I sure can’t do anything with it.” 

Yet. I wanted to add. But it was probably wishful thinking on my part that there was anything there at all. 

“What about you, any luck on your end?” 

“Nothing. The coordinates were a total bust, it’s just an empty stretch of desert now. I tracked down a couple Ten Rings camps but they either didn’t know what I was talking about or they’re surprisingly brave in the face of angry flying robots.”

“What about Raza?”

“Still in the wind.”

Fuck.

Bad news all the way down. And we were running out of time.

If I was right about how this _Fate_ thing worked. Whoever had the suit would be making their move soon. Stane would have had his rip-off finished sometime in the next few weeks, so assuming the time table hasn’t changed much. 

The attack should be coming soon.

We just don’t know what direction to expect it to come from. 

It certainly isn’t helping that I can’t shake the feeling there’s something I’m not remembering. Something important.

I wish I had something I could do. _Anything_ to make me feel productive instead of dragging my feet all the time while Tony works himself raw. 

Not that I’m doing _nothing._ In fact, I’ve felt more like Tony’s PR person these last few days than anything else. 

Sending out RSVPs, finishing a couple digital interviews, and setting up a bunch of official social media pages for me. The whole thing was surreal. Ryan Reynolds was following me on twitter. I..well, _Tony & I,_ as a _unit,_ had gotten an invitation to Taylor Swift’s birthday party (even though it was more than a month away, but I guess celebrities had busy lives). 

Apparently, now that Tony had broken his streak as a shut in, he’s expected to make an appearance at the office, at board meetings, at every fucking fundraiser or public event ever conceived of. He’ll be expected to shmooze investors again and charm the press. I would know...

Pepper’s been emailing me about it. 

She must think I’m Tony’s keeper now. I had the power to move him to New York, so she must think I have the power to move him to all these parties.

Ha, fucking ha. Not very likely. 

God, I do not envy Tony. I don’t think it had ever really occurred to me before how many fucking responsibilities he had. Put the superhero gig and all his duties as head of R&D on top of everything else and the poor fucker had about three full time jobs.

No wonder he hardly ever got a full night's sleep. 

Which I was now more aware of than ever since we were living in a house with a full-time staff that thought we were an actual real life couple.

We weren’t actually sleeping together, of course. Don’t be absurd. He was staying in one of the guest rooms. Had insisted actually, since the master bedroom (my room now, I guess) had been his parent’s. And...yea, too weird. I got that. 

It _was_ kind of weird having his clothes in my closet and his shit in my bathroom, it felt more like we were cohabiting now than it had in Malibu, when our bedrooms were essentially on opposite ends of the house. 

But I think the pet names bothered me more. Tony seemed to take a sort of perverse pleasure in trying to one-up himself on the ridiculous nicknames when there was anyone else in the room. 

“Did you come by just to check in? I thought you had a teleconference this afternoon?” 

Tony just smiled and pulled something out from behind his back that had gone unnoticed by me until now. It was a small bag, the kind of thing that might come in the mail if you’d ordered some t-shirts.

“Yup, just stopped by to see if you’d achieved liftoff, or whatever it is you’re doing in here. Costumes arrived this morning, good choice by the way. We’ll have to chop yours up a bit though, show some skin.” 

I groaned at the thought. I’d purposefully shopped more conservative because I thought rich meant fancy meant modest. But apparently the slut rule was universal on Halloween. 

“Fine, I’ll give it some strategic tears. Maybe some burn marks.”

“Sounds great. So...about the Halloween party you picked out.” 

“Ah, _ha!_ I knew it, I knew you had bad news. You were acting way too twitchy just to be here for a check in.”

He raises his hands in the universal ‘innocent’ gesture and smiles.

“I got an invite from a….colleague. He’s hosting -- we’ll he's not really the partying type. But fundraising is a universal evil. I was thinking since I haven’t been so keen on the party scene lately either it would be nice to have someone around to talk shop with if I got cagey.”

God, he’s looking at me like I’m going to shoot him down. Like I even have the power to. Why would I? A party is a party, I don’t know enough to know the difference yet. This new party could totally _suck_ by billionaire standards and I would never know. 

My confusion must read as displeasure though, because he keeps talking.

“I’ll make it up to you. You love the snow right, you’ve said that? We can take a trip--”

“You don’t have to bribe me, Tony, honestly. It’s not even an issue, we’ll go wherever you want. Is your friend anyone I would know?”

Doubtful. I know most of the major comic book players by name or reputation, but this is an actual world. It’s got to be full of scientists that have absolutely nothing to do with comics or superheroes or…

“Reed Richards.”

Holy shit. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------

** Halloween. **

I’m like a kid on fucking Christmas the night of the party. 

The Baxter Building. The Baxter Building. We’re going to _the Baxter Building._

Honestly, it’s been hard to focus on anything else the past few days I’ve been so excited.

Whether or not they’re superheroes in this world, who cares. I’m going to meet the Fantastic Four. Or, well, two of them at least. Tony says that Sue Storm and Reed Richards will both definitely be there. 

It’s weird, because I’m definitely not a fan. I’ve never read one of their comics in my life. But I’m psyched to meet them in a way I wasn’t even with Tony. Maybe because he was such a shock. I just got dumped here, but now I’ve adjusted. I’m here, I’m settled, I’m mostly not freaking out about it anymore.

AND I GET TO MEET THE FANTASTIC 4.

“Jesus,” Tony chides me with more than a little good humor in his voice while we’re getting ready, “Remind me not to introduce you to any other celebrities unless you’ve taken a Valium.” He looks me over a few times, reaching out to help fix some of my costume makeup. “Or six.” he finishes. 

I get a final look at the both of us in the mirror and take a few selfies for social media. We look fucking awesome. These costumes are probably only a few thousand dollars (and a roll of fabric, in my case) off from movie quality. It took me over an hour to put the body paint on alone, but it’s worth it. I’ve always been a junkie for halloween. 

It’s a good theme too, since Tony is pretty much already a mad ~~engineer~~ scientist, half of the equipment he has strapped to him is stuff he already had down in the lab. Both of our clothes are strategically burn marked to hell. Add some green body paint to make me a monster and we’re golden. 

“If there’s some sort of costume contest tonight and we don’t win I’m going to throw a very public temper tantrum, you ok with that?” 

Tony starts guiding me out the door, because, honestly, we were late thirty minutes ago. He’s been humoring my creative need for perfection long enough. 

“Are you kidding, pass my girl over for slutty nurse number three? I’ll bribe the judge first, don’t worry. You’ll win.”

God, that’s a dated reference, even for Tony. It gets a giggle from me though. I’m easy for laughs when I’m in such a good mood. 

“Is Happy taking us?” I ask as we head downstairs to the garage. Feeling like something is slightly off until I realize that I’m almost as tall as Tony in this outfit. Weird. I hadn’t realized these boots were so tall. “Are you gonna do me in the limo again?”

I can see Tony trying not to smile in response. 

“Happy has his own plans, It’s a holiday after all. I’m driving us.”

“You?...Tony we don’t have a car here. They’re all back in Malibu.”

We get to the garage and there’s a shiny new car waiting. Red. Because that’s all I really know about cars. Bright red, tiny, looks like it should be driven by someone with a small penis. 

Tony’s looking at it like they might want a moment alone together. 

I wonder if my eye roll is audible.

\----------------------------------------------------

My second party is miles better than my first. 

Sure, there’s the requisite media swarm outside, but there’s something about being in so many layers of makeup and costume (even though it technically covers very little) that makes it so much better than last time.

Last time I felt like I was on display and vulnerable. It was awful. This time I feel like I’m on stage, playing a role. I press up against Tony and pose for pictures and it’s fine, I certainly don’t want to prolong it, but it’s _fine._

Then we get inside and it’s surreal.

The party is upstairs so there’s a moment where we step inside and there’s just silence, and a mostly empty lobby. Weird, and almost unsettling. It makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I have that niggling feeling again. Like there’s something on the edge of my vision, on the tip of my tongue. Something I’m forgetting or not quite remembering.

I try to focus on it, to zero in, but before I can quite capture it the elevator doors open and we’ve arrived. The roar of the party greets us and Tony sweeps us forward to start making introductions. 

And _woah_ are there introductions to be made. 

An incredibly weird mix too.

I meet actors and musicians I’ve seen an idolized, right besides some I’ve never even heard of and that I’m pretty sure don’t actually _exist_ in my world. 

We dance, drink and eat sinful amounts of candy. The decorations are incredible, there are even little drones flying around overhead with ghost sheets on or dressed up like witches.

The whole thing is just amazing.

I should have known it was too good to last...

Shortly before midnight Tony leaves me to get another round of drinks and doesn’t come back for almost fifteen minutes. 

I leave my post on the wall to try and find him. 

I could text him, but odds are he would never hear his phone over the racket in here and my charge is almost gone. 

At 12:15 I give up my search and head towards the far end of the room. There’s a small lounge area there where it’s quieter so I can try and give Tony a call...or at least talk to Jarvis and ask where he’s gotten off to. 

I’m starting to feel it again. The unease. It’s stupid, but my heart is beating faster, like there’s something to be afraid of here. 

_Here._ With all these people, all this security. Hell, even Tony is here somewhere. 

It takes longer than I would like to navigate through the crowd. People keep stopping me to introduce themselves. I’m a new face in a sea of people who have probably all known eachother for years. I’ve become a quick study at brushing them off with the best of manners. 

Then someone brings me up short.

He’s handsome, very handsome. And so tall. But that’s not what stops me. He’s trying to get my attention, of course he is, most people are. More than that though. He feels familiar...there’s something about him. 

Brown hair, brown eyes...like Tony. More classically handsome though. Clean shaven, square jaw. He could be a model, well, maybe ten years ago. 

I realize I’ve stopped moving. I’m just staring at him. Hypnotized. 

I try to make a recovery. Smiling and introducing myself. Complimenting his costume. 

He’s dressed as a prince. The campy sort. Tights, ruffles and a cape. There’s something weirdly charming about it though.

He takes my hand, kisses it. It could be creepy, but it isn’t. I feel weirdly hazy, maybe I’ve had more to drink than I thought. Or maybe I just want to get laid...too bad I’m ‘taken’. 

“So, you know my deal, what’s yours?”

Not the smoothest line that ever was, but it’s not like I’m going to get some. He doesn’t answer anyways. Instead he’s leading me off to the side, away from the crowds. And I’m just following him, and...something’s wrong. This is weird. It’s like I’m watching myself from across the room. 

Then he asks, “So, tell me, _Stark,_ the weaponized suits are his, yes?”

_What?_

“What?”

He looks frustrated, a furrow builds between his eyebrows. I think he has a bit of an accent. I don’t recognize it though. 

My arm hurts. 

I think he’s holding it too tight.

“Tell. Me. About. Stark’s. Suits.”

_No._

“ **No!** ”

It’s like waking up, or stepping out of a fog bank. Jesus, what was he _doing_ to me. Fuck, I’m not sticking around to find out. I yank my arm out of his grip. It’s going to be bruised, but I manage to slip him because I don’t think he was expecting me to be able to fight back. There’s an angry shout from behind me, but I’m not sticking around to hear anything else he has to say. 

I turn and run into the crowd, hoping the ever milling blob of people will be enough for him to lose me. 

What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck.

It’s all I can think. I have no idea what’s happening. When Loki showed up at least I understood, I knew him, I knew his body language. There was something familiar there to grab onto, but this.

That man, I’d never seen him before. There was nothing…

My phone vibrates against my left tit where I’ve stuffed it into my bra. There’s not really anywhere else to hold it in this goddamn costume. I fumble it out without slowing, opening the text I’ve just received from an unknown number.

_‘hey langely, this is sue. tony’s phone died were at the bar talking. saw you talking to victor you looked upset are you ok?’_

The bar, that was all the way back…

I couldn’t turn around. I needed to get away. Get somewhere quiet so I could…

So I could…

Victor? Victor..

_God._ Victor von Doom.

It was like hearing an audible _click_ as everything fit into place in my mind. Everything that had been just out of focus. That cloak in the video, it had looked so familiar, I had been so sure. He’d even been wearing something similar tonight.

I needed. _Fuck._ I needed to do something. 

After that interaction Doom would _know_ that I knew who he was...and he clearly knew Tony. This was..not good. Worse than Obadiah. 

Fuck. We were in the fucking Baxter Building. With hundreds of potential high value hostages. With Doom. Who probably had a fucking suit. Did he want us? Or Reed? Or Sue?

Shit. Shit. Shit. 

This was so fucking bad. 

And my fault. My fault. 

Guilt. Unaccountable guilt. That’s what I was feeling now. Because here...well, in another world, but _here_. Victor wasn’t evil. In another world Obadiah and Tony fought and somewhere Victor von Doom went on being a good person. Well, maybe not a good person. But not a super villain.

I can’t help feeling like I did this. I made this happen, this is my responsibility. Which is stupid, fate or no fate, Doom has made his choices. He has free will, I’m _sure of it._

It’s just so….unfortunate.

That it has to happen this way. 

Finally. _Finally_. I’m in the elevator. I press the button for one of the higher floors. It doesn’t matter which. Just away from here. 

I’m already dialing my phone. 

I expect to have to deal with a receptionist, or some sort of cover company or any bullshit. But instead I get..

“Coulson.”

Sweet relief courses through me. Thank god. 

“Coulson it’s..” what, _‘it’s me’_? What the fuck does that mean. “It’s Stark’s...partner. There’s, look, there’s something bad happening at the Baxter Building. I can’t explain, there isn’t time. Please come, bring lots of people. Please come _now_. Please come _fast_. This isn’t...this is _important_.” 

“Understood.” 

That’s it, that all he says. Then there’s a click and the line goes dead. 

Fuck. I’m going to owe Shield my first born child for this. 

I’m walking down some fucking hallway on some fucking floor but I’m afraid to stop moving. I’m afraid Doom is following me, that he’ll find me, that he’ll….

I call Jarvis.

“Miss, I monitored your last call and --”

“Jarvis, get in touch with Tony _now._ Call Sue Storm, tell him he needs to go home _right now_ and get the suit. The person who bought the Mark I is here and he knows I know it was him and --”

I’m starting to hyperventilate. It’s pathetic. 

I'm starting to learn that maybe I'm not so good in combat situations. Which probably means I’m not going to survive very long here.

Great. 

“J… I’m _scared._ ”

I step into one of many doors I’ve been passing and lock myself in. It looks like some sort of science lab. 

If I were Tony, I could probably build myself a bunch of bombs of some sort of super taser with this much equipment. 

To me, it’s useless. I’m useless.

Jarvis tries to talk to me, to calm me down. I walk him through my encounter with von Doom. I’m about to start explaining the little I know about him from the comics when I hear a weird rumbling from somewhere...outside?

I check the clock. Not even ten minutes since I called Shield. 

Even if Tony and Coulson were out the door the very second I reached them they couldn’t be here by now. Tony is at least five more minutes away….Coulson, who knows? 

The rumbling gets louder, it seems to be coming from all around me now. 

I start crying. Which is actually ok, since I’m pretty sure I’m about to die. 

“Jarvis, tell Tony…” 

There’s a lot I should tell Tony. If I’m going to die, I should try and prepare him for everything that’s going to come. There’s so much we haven’t even touched on yet. Civil War, Ultron, anything about the Infinity Stones...But really all I can think about is --- 

The windows shatter, there’s an explosion, the door to the room gets blow off it’s hinges.

There’s a loud clamor of metal on metal that I swear to god I can feel in my bones.

The smoke clears. 

Dr. Doom steps through.

Yea.  
I’m going to die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Avengers_Mansion
> 
> http://i.imgur.com/kl2KLD1.png
> 
> References for people unfamiliar with the comics.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go. The end of the Iron Man 1 timeline. 
> 
> Don't panic. I am calling this fic 'complete' but it's just because I've decided to separate them by movie.  
> Way more people read completed fanfiction and I only started writing this because I so desperately wanted to read something similiar. So the more people I can get it out to the better.
> 
> I'll be back in a week or so with the first chapter of the next story arc (even though it's all sort of overlapping.)

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I wish I could say I planned this next part, that I had some stroke of genius. That, in the heat of the moment, I remembered some bullshit experiment a’la high school chem and connected the dots.

Really, I wish there was anything to blame it on but dumb luck. Because the idea that I was seconds away from death, and the only thing saving me was...what? Chance? Panic? A random stroke of dumb luck? That didn't really sit well in the aftermath. 

Anyways…..

I tried to run.

Where had I thought I was going, who knows? I was blocked into the room by Doom. The windows were open --- ie: shattered -- but that was a fucking 30 story fall. So no thanks. 

Behind me, I could heard loud crackling, like a bad electricity sound effect from a sci-fi movie. I ducked behind the first cover I saw. 

A cabinet full of chemicals. 

Doom’s first blast hit it full on. 

There was a cascade of broken glass and a rush of impossible heat as the room erupted in blue flames.

I couldn’t breathe. 

The smoke wasn’t thick, but it was noxious. Whatever had been in that cabinet was choking up the air. Well, if Dr. Doom didn’t kill me, it seemed like these fumes certainly would.

I tried to take in a breath, but the air burned my lungs. The fire was spreading fast, separating me from Doom, but it wasn’t stopping his advance. He was already crackling with another charge of whatever that electrical attack was. 

So…

It was really more of a choose your own adventure sort of thing now. I could die by fire, by fumes, or by a thirty five story fall. Or I could let Doom kill me. That was my least favorite option, by far. 

One more step backwards and I could feel the frigid New York wind whipping at my back. My hand flew out instinctively for something to grasp. Heights had never really been something I was afraid of, but as I shot a look over my shoulder my view went down, down, down towards the street far below….

My vision started to swim. Vertigo, maybe. Fear? I was about to pass out. Possibly from the sweltering heat. The fumes might be getting to me, or maybe people really _did_ swoon in high-stress situations. Either way. It was unlikely I would ever wake up again. 

Then I noticed something: as Doom stepped forward into the fire, I noticed his armor seemed to be….melting? No. It _definitely_ was, and he wasn’t even reacting. 

Actually, how strange was it that he hadn’t said _anything_? Hadn’t tried to goad me, mock me, or get any of the answers he had seemed so intent on downstairs?

The movements of the armor were stiff and robotic...almost as if--

A hysterical laugh bubbled out of me.

It was a Doombot: an early model, clearly, since whatever AI was driving it was obviously pretty unsophisticated. But it was a fucking Doombot. 

I didn’t even get to be killed by the man himself.

Well, that was fucking depressing.

Black spots started to crowd my vision, and as my eyelids began to droop, I tried to accept my fate.

Then the floor caved in, and the Doombot fell through.

For a second I just blinked dumbly at the hole in the floor, gasping as the movement brought in a rush of clear air. My knees were still wobbly, my head swimming in toxins, and most of the room was gone. 

There was probably only a fifty-fifty chance I could even make it to solid ground.

But I wasn’t going to get another chance.

As quickly as I could, I worked my way around the remaining edge of the room, eyes darting back to the pit below with paranoia. The Doombot had been consumed by the flames in the fall, but I had seen movies, I didn’t trust for a goddamn second that it was actually dead. 

Or that it would be the last one I saw tonight. 

Maybe I jinxed myself. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------

When I finally made it out into the hall I reflexively reached for my phone to call Jarvis. He would know where Tony was and if SHIELD was here yet. But my phone was gone, no doubt lost somewhere in the wreckage of the room behind me. 

Shit. 

I turned towards the stairwell; some shit was definitely going on down there now. I could hear explosions, loud clangs, even a few screams from this far up. Gunshots too if I wasn’t mistaken. It must be chaos down there. 

The reasonable, _good_ side of me said I should should hurry and try to help. That even if I was just a civilian, I had knowledge, maybe there was something I could do…

But the part of me that was scared shitless said maybe SHIELD was here, maybe Iron Man? They could protect me. I would be safe. I just had to make it downstairs.

Honestly, when I opened the door and started heading down I didn’t know which side of me was winning -- not that it ended up mattering. 

There was a loud noise, and I flew sideways. My vision went blurry and I could hear...something, but if felt like I was underwater. Everything hurt. My head echoed with a high pitched noise. A hand wrapped around the back of my neck, cold and metal. It pulled hard, holding me so tight I was sure my bones would be bruised. But it was like I couldn’t hurt anymore. I realized I was clinging to the railing of the stairwell, screaming. 

Later I would understand that this was a concussion, but at the time it was like I was incapable of understanding what was really going on. Like I’d lost my ability to process complex thoughts, I was only my fear and my stubborn will to survive. 

I kicked out, flailing, but metal doesn’t feel pain, and the shock of the blow did nothing but resonate up my leg making me even more useless. 

Vaguely I registered that some of the pain had left, that I was back on the ground and the bruisingly strong grip had left me. But I didn’t understand. I was so tired. That was all that mattered. 

Maybe if I just rested for a minute...

But it was so loud.

There was fighting. I think. Nearby. I could hear blows, feel the heat of Doom's blasts being fired in the enclosed space.

Finally there was a loud clang. Then another, then another. Almost rhythmic. 

_‘Tony?’_

Then silence. 

No, not silence. 

_Footsteps._

Someone was walking towards me slowly. Human footsteps, the soft fall of shoe treads, not the heavy clang of a Doombot, or even the Iron Man suit.

I fought to open my eyes even though I couldn’t remember closing them. There was a soft pressure on my head, then a noise of frustration. I felt arms gently lifting me, sliding under my knees and carefully supporting my head. Through the blur I saw dark hair, pale skin, and an expression of the deepest curiosity looking down at me as we descended. 

“Loki?” I asked, sounding disbelieving even to myself, “What? _Why?”_

Trying to talk made me cough, my throat felt like it was coated in grit and grime, scraped raw.  
My voice was haggard and faint, ruined by the smoke, I’d guess. Or the screaming. It would probably be raw for days. Though, going by how much the rest of me was throbbing, it was probably the least of my worries. 

“Perhaps I was ordered to or perhaps I just find you interesting enough to save. Better yet, perhaps I just wanted you to _owe_ me. You are a valuable person to have in one’s debt, after all.”

I groaned in response squirming. Despite the fact that I probably couldn’t walk on my own right now, Loki’s help wasn’t worth the headache or the sewing kit’s worth of strings I was sure came attached. 

His arms tightened and I was sure I heard a soft laugh. 

“While I have you here,” he drawled, and begrudgingly I relaxed into the steady sway of his body as we descended. “I must ask. This… _attire_ of yours,” God, my Halloween costume. I’d forgotten in the fray. I must have looked ridiculous, fighting...flailing for my life dressed like a slutty Frankenstein. “Is it traditional for midgardian women to charge into battle unarmed, painted green, and clad only in undergarments?”

From the mirth in his tone I could tell he was making fun at my expense. I’m sure they had at least masquerades on Asgard, so he got the concept. He was just being a dick. 

Wait a minute…

“Magic…” His face fell, a strange reaction, but I tried to clarify, my lips still numb and clumsy, “Use it, heal me.” I gestured to my head where I thought the pain was the worst and was surprised when my hand met the wet, sticky warmth of drying blood.

Well, that wasn’t good. 

“I cannot, I’m sorry,” and wow, he actually _did_ look sorry. How’bout that.

I whined. “Nothing? Not even a mystical aspirin. Come _on_.” 

“You misunderstand. I know the spells; I simply cannot use them.”

My brain trips over itself to make sense of that, “Because you need your hands?”

“Because magic does not work on you.”

Well that...sucks. 

“I….had my first suspicions when the bifrost failed. Even more when mother’s dream magic could not reach you. After I felt you for the first time, few doubts remained, yet....” 

I laughed, if I’d felt better I would have made an inappropriate joke there. But this _really_ wasn’t the time. 

“Still, I did not know for sure until tonight. When I bested the metal monstrosity above, I attempted to restore you to health, but my spells had no effect.”

Right. 

I remembered now. 

I was a ‘Black Hole’ Loki had said but…

“No,” I protested trying to sort out my thoughts but forming sentences was hard. Hell, thinking coherently was hard, “Doom, did something… He made me docile, made me want to do what he said. Tell him things….’was magic.”

Right, because that was what made Doom such a fucking double threat. Technology and magic, often combined. Not good. 

But Loki was already shaking his head. 

“We shall test it. Later. Though I find it exceedingly unlikely that anything but the...well, anything but the strongest of magics would have any effect on you.” 

“Anything but the Infinity Stones?” I asked before I even had time to think that maybe I shouldn’t give away that I had that knowledge. 

Loki’s gaze became sharper, but he nodded. 

“Perhaps I should not be surprised that you know of their existence, though you continue to surpass my expectations. Stark does not know the breadth of the weapon he has at his disposal.”

And that was... _No._ Just no.

“ ‘M not a weapon.”

“Perhaps not in Stark’s hands,” he retorted smoothly sounding so sure of himself that I wanted to shout and slap him. All I could do was clench my fists and fume as he carried me down and down and down...presumably to safety.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------

Honestly, I don’t know where I thought he was taking me. I wasn’t really in any condition to think about it. I was completely at his mercy. If he wanted to drop me off in some random alley it wasn’t exactly like there was anything I could do about it.

Except like, scream. Maybe. 

….

So imagine my surprise when we walked right out the front door.

Right into a line of wind and flashing light and sirens. Of agents screaming at Loki to _‘put his hands in the air and let the girl go’._

Instinctively I moved away from the noise, from the cold pressing further into Loki. 

Loki wasn’t stopping nor was he even slowing down. He didn’t even seem bothered really at the threat of being shot; not that I thought bullets would really hurt him. They would sure as hell hurt me though so there was that.

I could practically hear the confusion of the SHIELD agents as they scrambled to figure out what to do as Loki and I drew closer to their lines. The ground was littered with rubble and broken pieces of glass and twisted metal. 

I think I even saw some blood.

All the buildings in the area were at least partly on fire, had pieces crumbling off. 

Shit had definitely gone down here. Cars were flipped over, and there were a couple people being loaded into ambulances off to the left near where a few brave media members had gathered -- kept back from the action only by SHIELD’s intervention.

“Stop right there.” 

Coulson, that was Coulson, and he was close. 

With an obnoxious amount of effort, I managed to focus on his face where he was maybe five feet away, gun pointed right at us.

“Hi.”

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Miss Bowen. It’s a shame it couldn’t have happened under better circumstances.”

“Yea…” I said nodding dumbly, forcing myself to try and scan the crowd behind him. Thinking there might be other faces I’d recognize. 

“Put her down.”

“No.”

Great. Loki was going to be antagonistic. I groaned and started squirming in protest.

“Listen. You clearly care about her. I heard about the stunt you pulled in Malibu. She needs medical attention. If you hand her over now…”

“Do you wish to go with these humans?”

“‘Wish’ is phrasing it pretty strongly. I think I kind of have to.” 

Loki gave Coulson and the assembled agents one last look, the kind you might give a bug you’re about to step on. 

_‘An ant has no quarrel with a boot,’_ I remembered, really hoping we were about to at least make a better first impression here than that one.

I gave Loki my best _‘please be nice’_ look, hoping it wasn’t lost under the layers of makeup, dried blood and exhaustion. But my worries were for nothing. 

Since after a few more seconds of tense staring Loki lowered me carefully to my feet….or foot, as the case may be. Without so much as another word of antagonism. An agent hurried forward to help me, guiding me to the back of an open strike van. 

I tried to look over my shoulder as soon as I could. Worried that Loki would hurt someone, or even that he would just open the Bifrost here in front of everyone...that would be almost equally bad. Plus I kind of wanted to thank him, whether or not he ever insisted on cashing in the favor -- he _had_ saved my life. I couldn’t just not be grateful for that. 

But when I looked behind me he was just gone. No fanfare, no brilliant flash of light. He’d just vanished, probably literally, with his illusion skills. 

I wondered when I would see him again. 

More importantly….

Where was Tony? Was he ok? Where was Doom? Had he gotten to Reed and Sue? How many people were hurt? What had _happened_?

Coulson was at my side, trying to strap me in while a female agent made overtures at cleaning a burn on my arm. 

“Is Tony..” that was all I managed to get out. Now that I was safe, now that the last of the adrenaline was fading from my system, it was becoming harder and harder to stay focused, to stay awake. 

Coulson sighed, as if I was being absolutely unreasonable and demanding. He pulled a small device from his belt, a radio maybe, and held it up to me. Then spoke into his own. 

“Connect 21B to the frequency Stark gave us. We found her.” 

Less found and more ‘had hand-delivered-to’, but ok. There was a quick humming sound and suddenly Tony was in my ear, panting and exhausted. “Give me good news, Agent.”

“Tony! Are you --”

“Thank -- Jarvis lost you, there was a chemical fire. I thought...”

“Yea, it was... I’ve never been more scared in my entire life. I just --”

The sound of an explosion echoes through the link and Tony swears. “Fuck, one second!”

“Tony!”

“Yup. Hold on, I just need to…”

“Are you still fighting?”

“Uh-huh.”

There’s a loud crack of lightening in my ear and Tony makes a soft _‘oompf_ ’ sound, then I watch as a chunk of Skyscraper falls to the ground not forty feet away from me.

Then I look up.

And my breath catches in my chest. 

God. Tony. 

He’s almost a blur; he’s moving so fast, smooth and effortless in the air even though I can hear his grunts of pain and exertion up close in my ear. 

There must be at least seven Doombots around him. Dumb but powerful, and they’re doing some damage. Missing arms, legs, and one doesn’t even have a head but they keep flying at him. Shooting huge arcs of lightning, throwing punches that knock chunks out of concrete.

My heart stutters in my chest.

“Listen, I’m a bit tied up at the moment. I’m going to have to call you back.”

God, he could die. 

I hear myself let out a pathetic little sob and Tony…

“Fuck--I..Listen, Everything’s going to be ok Baby. Go with the agent and I’ll meet you, ok? We’ll be together before you know it. Everything is going to be--” 

The end of Tony’s sentence was cut off by another resounding explosion, loud even without the earpiece, and suddenly Coulson is in front of me again. 

“It’s time to go,” he says, taking my only connection to Tony away and locking me into the back of the van. Like a prisoner. 

Almost immediately I feel us start to pull away, and desperately I try to look out the small windows in the back. Needing to get one last look at Tony, to make sure he’s still ok. Still fighting, at least.

He would make it through this, he _had_ to, he’s a hero and...and that’s how movies work, right? Bad guy beaten. Hero victorious. Happy endings all around? If ‘Fate’ was a real thing then I had to believe he would win. No matter what, it was _supposed_ to happen after all. He had so much more he was going to do. 

Still...it just looked so _brutal._ As we drove away I watched him give as good as he got, blow for blow, shot for shot. 

Eventually we were too far away. Tony was out of my view. 

But my eyes didn’t so much as blink until we turned a corner so afraid I might miss something important. 

All I saw was the heavy corpse of a Doombot falling from the sky. 

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I woke up to lights too bright and hands prodding at my wounds.

Someone had stripped me, washed off most of my paint; and my leg was already in some sort of splint.

There was definitely some sort of painkiller at play here. My whole body felt floaty, my head full of fluff, but the random aches and throbs that had been all but omnipresent earlier were nowhere to be found.

SHIELD must have really shelled out for the good stuff. 

Focusing was hard, but I still managed to have a private laugh at the cliche that was SHIELD. This place looked like every private military hospital I’d ever seen on T.V: A bunch of impossibly high-tech gear, check. Everyone in ridiculous medical uniforms. check. Every conceivable surface the same dreary, clinical grey color, from the walls, to the fabric, to the stainless steel of the medical implements. Check.

I wondered if I should be afraid. Was I in danger here? Hydra -- 

I blinked. OR maybe I passed out.

More time passed.

I was in a room now: a proper one, like a normal hospital would put you in for an overnight stay. My splint was now a cast, and there were areas all over my body covered in medical tape or gauze. They’d put an I.V. in, but there was no label on the bag. I wasn’t stupid enough to try and tear it out though. I probably needed whatever it was. 

I pressed the ‘call’ button and fumbled for the T.V. remote, hungry to see news coverage of tonight's events and to find out what happened to Tony. 

The screen blinked to life, showing me an obscenely cheerful woman trying to sell me yogurt. 

Figures.

I heard the clicking of heels approaching, and the door to my room opened admitting a woman with thick glasses, a worn looking sweater over her standard-issue medical uniform, and hair pulled back into a tight bun. She also had on stage makeup to make her look...older, I think? Maybe just less attractive, less threatening.

“Is this a test?”

It was the best way I could think to respond. Either SHIELD was trying to test my supposed knowledge by seeing how I reacted to being assigned Natasha Romanov as a nurse, or they sent her in here to asses me for something else. 

Either way, I was not amused. 

Though I _was_ impressed. She played the confused bystander flawlessly regarding me with a slightly concerned and taken-aback expression in response to my strange greeting. 

She spoke to me as if she thought I might be slightly unhinged. 

“I just need to refill your I.V. and check your vitals. No one is testing anyone, you’re safe here.”

“Yea, ok.” Her name-tag said ‘Naomi’. Cute. “I’m sure that’s why they sent a Black Widow to my bedside, so I would feel _safe_ ….and they wonder why I avoided making contact for so long.”

For a second I thought she might play dumb. Pretend to not know what I was talking about. There was definitely a way out there, if I had been bluffing. But who know, maybe she could tell I wasn’t.

“Huh, whaddya know? They were right about you. Very well informed. Spy?”

I shook my head not taking my eyes off her as she shook her hair loose and lost the glasses. Her posture changing into something much more...menacing. 

“For someone who isn’t a spy you sure seem to--”

Then the news came on the television, and I basically forgot she existed. 

_‘Victor Von Doom missing and at large,’_ the scroll said. Which was, just, all kinds of not good. I guess I had just assumed that with all the Doombots in the fray Dr. Doom would be in there somewhere as well, but watching the report, it seemed for all the world like Victor had attempted to play the victim. He’d stayed at the party and fled with the crowd. 

Except he hadn’t planned for me. I had tipped off SHIELD, and they had been waiting for him. From the sound of it, he had barely avoided capture, and at the moment had only managed to leave the country on virtue of the authorities confusion over the status of his diplomatic immunity. In a few hours he would be back in Latveria, and there was no doubt -- in my mind, or anyone elses, it seemed -- that once there he would begin to build his army anew. Most likely with better materials and more advanced AI. 

_Awesome._

Footage played in loop of Tony fighting off hordes of the damn things, of him taking blow after blow barely flinching. He tore them apart, blew them up with the suit’s rockets, and they just kept coming. The clip ended when a lucky shot hit Tony up and through the roof of the ballroom they’d been fighting in. 

It was surreal hearing them speculate. _‘The Iron Man’_ was only one of the names being thrown around. Most people seemed to think he was a robot of some make. Popular theories said Reed Richards made him, but I heard Tony Stark mentioned more than a few times. 

Natasha had left. Sometime. Probably unwise to take your eyes off a trained assassin, but she could kill me with both hands tied behind her back and a blindfold on so….

At least there was no way she could think I was a spy now. No spy was that incompetent. 

I’d take that as a win. 

This was that part in the movie after all. Villain defeated. Hero saves the day. ~~Lovers kiss.~~ Fade to black on a swell of music. 

But there would be no scene cut here. Just the smell of antiseptic and a general feeling of unease as I worried about what was to come: about when I would see Tony again, about what SHIELD was going to do with me. 

Still, I was starting to get the hang of this _‘Fate’_ thing now. As unpleasant as the night -- or days -- ahead may be, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. This universe was predictable.

We had beat the first boss. Credits roll. Now we got to rest, heal up before starting again.

Thor is next. But we’ve got a few months to rest. If we’re following the same pattern. 

And if Loki isn’t going to be the villain...which, it really seems like he isn’t, then I guess we’ve got another mystery caller to look forward to. 

_Can’t wait._

There was at least a small amount of comfort in the routine of it all. So much was changed, yes. 

The future was uncertain.

But somehow I felt confident I knew what was coming next: a press conference, a badly constructed story about a bodyguard, Tony would go fantastically off script, and then he’d be ‘Man of the Year’.

Different story, same ending. 

I look at the clock. 

Almost three am. That’s quite a time jump.

I wonder where Tony is right now.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------

Yelling wakes me up: angry voices shouting over each other from just down the hall, but I don’t even try to focus on the words, because I recognize that voice...and that’s all that matters.

Instantly I’m wide awake. My mind struggling for clarity, for comprehension as the pain meds and the lingering concussion cling to the edges of my consciousness. 

“Tony?!”

I’d told myself over and over that he’d be fine. He was the hero of this story; he could handle anything, no matter the odds. That was how this _worked._ But a small part of me had still doubted, had still been terrified that he would get hurt. That somehow he would lose. That I would never see him again.

The relief coursing through me now was sweeter than any drug. I needed to see him, to touch him and to talk to him. 

The yelling stopped at my call and there were a few seconds where I didn’t hear anything. Where I started to think I imagined his voice, that I was still too out of it. 

Then I heard Natasha’s voice say, “Let them through.”

Them, not him, _them._

But I forgot to worry about that. Because Tony was here. There was the brief sound of shoes squeaking on the linoleum floor and then there he was -- limping, with his arm in a sling and one hell of a black eye looking exhausted, burnt-out, and so, so _relieved._

But he was here, he was _alive._ No lasting damage. 

Thank God. 

Someone is coming in behind him but who fucking cares about that because Tony is at my side almost instantly, leaning over me on the hospital bed and --- for a second it seems like he’s going to kiss me he’s _so_ close.

He presses our foreheads together, eyes closed, and takes a few shaky breaths. It’s.. _.intense._ Maybe more intense than a kiss would have been. I’ve been kissed before, _a lot_ even. I know how to handle kisses, even when I’m this fucked up. I’m less qualified to handle this sort of intimacy. Sustained and purposeful emotional connection. Not my forte. Not really Tony’s either though, and it’s not like I don’t….

Yea. I want this. Enjoy now, worry about fallout later.

So I reciprocate, bring my hand up and run my fingers through the soft, still damp hairs on the nape of his neck and just....breathe him in. 

His eyes are open now. I didn’t notice because I’d been watching his lips, rookie mistake, but lips that close just seem to have some sort of hypnotic-magnetic quality, at least when they’re lips you want to kiss anyways. 

It wouldn’t take much, and for some reason I’m almost sure he wouldn’t mind...but. I’m also pretty sure it wouldn’t mean anything. At least, anything other than that emotions are running high. That there’s been so much adrenaline and fear in the last few hours, that Tony… from the sound of what he’d said earlier, probably had thought I was dead. 

In the long run it would just make things awkward. 

Anyways, the choice gets taken out of my hands when he pulls away, fingers reaching up to trace something on the right side of my head. His brow is furrowed, concerned and the touch feels weird, tender and foreign, almost like….

“It’ll grow back.” he says, clearly trying to be reassuring, “It’s a tough look to pull off, but I think you can handle it. We’ll get you some gel and some radioactive hair-dye, you can even borrow a few of my old t-shirts to really complete the look.”

I laugh. Out of relief mostly, to be back to making stupid jokes again. So some of my hair was gone, that sucked. But it would grow back, they’d stitched up the wound. Nothing was permanently damaged. 

Happy Ending. 

So I laughed. Or tried to, anyways. I’d forgotten about my throat, how messed up it was from the smoke. All that really came out was a raspy cough. 

Tony’s smile fell immediately. 

I tried to wave him off, to explain that I was fine, that there’d just been too much smoke. Too much screaming. But all that came out was more coughing...and more and more. Until my eyes were tearing and my face was red, and I had to bend over to try and get it together. 

Someone was holding something out, trying to press it into my hand. A glass of water, I gulped it down greedily, trying to calm my throat. 

Well.

Talk about ruining the moment. 

Wait a second…

I looked up. Four pairs of eyes looked back. 

_Great._ This was exactly how I’d planned on meeting Sue Storm and Reed Richards. 

“Hi, Happy,” I said instead. 

“Glad you’re alright,” he said, looking about as awkward as I felt. Tony looked mostly amused now, though he was pretending to inspect the nearby equipment. And the Fantastic Two were, well, Sue was looking tired, mostly. And if Reed was even showing an emotion I certainly couldn’t tell what it was. _Bored,_ maybe?

“So you knew about the….” he seemed to be struggling for words, almost literally grasping at the air as he tried to finish the sentence, “the..red and gold thing? The super suit?” 

Tony, who looked mildly offended by the phrasing, turned and raised an eyebrow at Happy. 

“Happy came by the estate when he saw the news. Apparently he was worried about us --”

“Well, I’m a sweet guy.”

“ -- he was there when we showed up, and well, I was kind of in a hurry, understandably, I would think, so.”

“We?”

Sue spoke up, 

“Tony seemed pretty panicked after that phone call, and then there were the….. _robots_...and the valets weren’t going to get his car while they were running for their lives, so...we drove him to the mansion.”

“You couldn’t have just given him your car?”

Reed gave me a look like I’d just said something unbelievably stupid and spoke up for the first time. 

“You think we wanted to stay in the building full of murderous robots?”

Ouch. Ok. Touche. 

I guess I know why Reed Richards has such a reputation as an asshole, that _was_ kind of blunt. But… honest.

“So I may have had a bit of an audience for my wardrobe change.” Tony gestured to our little gathering to illustrate his point. He instantly gave a shrug like he regretted it, but what can you do, a hero’s gotta hero.

It wouldn’t matter anyways, I wanted to say, in a day or two everyone would know. 

_‘I am Iron Man’_..... I could hardly wait, and I think Tony could tell, my lack of censure for his actions and my secretive smile may have tipped my hand. And I would have said something, but I thought that moment was important. It needed to be his choice, his words. 

He needed to own it. 

There was the soft sound of a throat clearing and nurse spy-face peeked her head around the corner, still half-in half-out of her disguise. 

“Debrief at oh-eight-hundred. Get some rest while you can. Ask one of the agents if you need somewhere to sleep.” 

Reed and Sue gave us a brief goodbye and followed her out. Happy did something similar, only he hugged Tony first, and had a short private conversation with him. 

Then Tony stepped outside for a second, and came back with a nurse and an extra cot, pushing it right up next to mine. 

“Get some sleep, I’ll be here.” He said, stacking his pillows so he could sit up facing the door. I pulled him down to my level, spreading a blanket over both of us and flinging my arm over him preemptively so he couldn’t move without disturbing me.

“ _We’ll_ sleep. For about four hours if we pass out right now. Shield’s an asshole but they’re not gonna slit our throats while we’re dreaming. If nothing else, because we’re both way more valuable to them alive than dead. Come on, you’ve got to be exhausted after that fight Tony, get some sleep. You’ve earned it.”

He says something in response, I think. But my head’s already resting on his chest. I’m safe. _He’s safe._ So I feel the vibration. I know I should respond. 

But all I do is hum contentedly, nuzzle in closer, and let sleep take me. 

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------

The debrief, next morning, is pretty….. _intense._

Intense is a word. So is heartbreaking, exhausting and devastating. Pick your favorite. 

Sue starts crying as soon as she’s asked the first question about Victor. Apparently the two of them were pretty close. Which, I knew...kind of. I knew they had some weird quasi-romance thing going on, in some universes. That in others they were married. 

She was with Reed here though, clearly, so that must be kind of weird.

All Tony could tell me is that they’d worked together on and off for a long time, gone to school together too. So, old friends, at the very least. 

Yea, that’s gotta suck. 

Reed acts like he isn’t surprised. And maybe, just _maybe_ he actually is that cold, that heartless. But I’m guessing it’s just a defense mechanism, an act. 

Anyways, Coulson questions them first. We don’t really even need to be there. Happy _isn’t_ , he probably went home last night...dismissed by Shield. 

Tony is next, his part is pretty straightforward, mostly just battle details. Shield wants the specs for his suits. Tony tells them to get fucked, absolutely no one is surprised. Then they tell us they have an almost completely intact Doombot husk that they want him to examine, after of course, and I can see him start almost vibrating in his seat in anticipation. 

Now it’s my turn. Great. Not that I have anything to hide, but the events of last night aren’t exactly something that I’m eager to relive. 

Especially with Tony as an audience member. But...here we go. 

First, Shield plays surveillance footage, asks me to walk them through it. I try to explain, _patiently,_ exactly what’s going on. When Victor grabs me, when I start panicking.

Tony chimes in as I take the elevator upstairs, he plays audio from his phone of my call with Jarvis. And _God,_ it kills me that Tony had to hear this. I sound terrified, it must have been awful, must have distracted him the whole fight.

My fault I can’t keep it together when the going gets tough. Once I’m in fighting form again I should work on that. Maybe Shield can have one of their higher up agents teach me some moves. Maybe how to shoot a gun. Give me something to work with the next time things get dicey. 

Then they show the lab, me cowering behind a desk. The door blowing in. The Doombot, me flailing to get away, then it fires, the room seems to practically _explode_ in flame, and the footage cuts. 

Tony is practically carved from stone next to me, but he jerks when the fire erupts. I put my hand over his where it’s clenched into a shaking fist in his lap, gently working it open until I can intertwine our fingers. 

I hear him take a steadying breath. 

“What we need to know,” Coulson is saying, pressing the button to switch off the clip like everything he just showed us is no big deal. Like we didn’t just both almost die last night. Like other people actually _didn’t._ “is what happened next. What happened between here,” he gestures to the lab footage, “and _here_.” 

The screen jumps to life again, but this time it isn’t security footage, it’s cellphone footage...or maybe just an awful camera. But it’s far away, definitely from behind the blockade I’d seen. Showing me, in Loki’s arms as we exit the building, little more than a ragdoll. Honestly, if not for the quality it could be a scene from a movie. 

A mysterious figure holding an unconscious woman, walking completely undaunted towards a line of well-armed men pointing guns and yelling. Fires raging in the street. It’s all _very_ dramatic. 

Especially the ending. 

Loki hands me off to the Shield agents and turns to go, entirely unworried by the platoon of weapons pointed at his back. Then someone throws something at him, something designed to incapacitate or stun, most likely -- but when it makes contact with Loki's shadowy form in the smoke he just...fizzles out, an illusion where I know for certain just moments before there was a solid man. 

Impressive. 

I chuckle a little and Coulson gives me an unamused look. Not that it’s anything compared to the look I’m currently getting from Tony.

Oh yea. He didn’t even know Loki was involved. I hadn’t really thought of that. 

It was hard to keep the blush off my cheeks. 

It wasn’t like that between me and Loki. Hell, it _really_ wasn’t like that. But I knew that both Tony and Coulson were probably thinking it was. Why _else_ would he save me, right? _Twice_ , even? 

But Coulson was waiting for my answer. Hands laced patiently in front of him on the drab, interrogation room table.

“He, um… after the lab, I was trying to get downstairs and I think I got jumped, by, um, another Doombot. It burst through the wall and attacked me. I hit my head and it grabbed me, I tried to get away but, you know, they’re pretty tough. That’s when I hurt my foot. Instinct. I tried to kick it when it picked me up. Didn’t really go my way.”

Coulson was unmoved by my attempts at levity. 

“Anyways. I was out of it. It would have killed me, but Loki showed up. I’m not saying it was a coincidence, it definitely wasn’t. He finds me… _interesting._ I can’t tell you why. Actually...that’s not true. I won’t. I won’t tell you why. It’s private, and complicated, and none of your business. But, he saved me, and…..and that’s it.”

_‘He says I owe him’,_ I didn’t say, _‘he’ll be back. He’ll be important later, somehow.’_

“You saw the rest. He took me downstairs and left me with Shield agents.” 

I waited for Coulson to say something, to react at all really, it was hard to imagine he-- _ouch, fuck!_

Reflexively I yanked my hand away from Tony, I hadn’t even noticed him tightening his grip on me, but it had become _waaay_ on the wrong side of painful. 

“Tony, I--”

“It’s fine.”

“He isn’t--”

“I’m _fine._ ”

And that was that. A totally normal Shield debriefing. Completely traumatizing, every second of it terrible for someone involved. 

It ended with an ominous ‘ _we’ll be in touch’_ from Coulson. Which, ok, we actually kind of needed them to be. I needed to trade Shield something so I could get a promise to be involved with the defrosting of Captain America. That was pretty fucking important. But still, couldn’t they just say _‘Thank you’_ and _‘Goodbye’_ like normal people. Did they have to be so fucking _Doomsday_ about everything?

Jesus. 

Still, it felt weird. Them just letting us go. Getting our progress report and then...what? See you tomorrow at the press conference?

It seemed so unofficial. 

At least Tony seemed eager to get out of here. The moment Coulson officially dismissed us he was out of his seat and out the door. I barely remembered to pause to ask them to send us the Doombot to examine before following him.

“It can’t leave our facilities.”

Coulson practically called after us. 

“If you want him to do his best work, you’ll let him examine it in _his_ lab.” 

I countered, before slamming the door behind us as we left.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------

The one good thing about being in a cast for the next few weeks was that not even the media could expect me to wear heels now. So, upside. 

Tony stubbornly refused to give his injured limb the required time to rest, retreating almost immediately to his lab to repair the damage done to the his suit. Reed and Sue were around a lot, suddenly. I assumed they were consulting on the armor, or other related technology, since they all locked themselves away in the lab for hours.

One night when we were having a rare moment of rest together in one of the lounge areas Tony had drawn something elaborate on my leg cast. A blueprint, I think. It couldn’t have been anything important, since it was there, clearly presented for anyone to see. But it was…. _pretty_ in an odd sort of way, and he had signed it, big and sweeping -- everything I would have ever imagined Tony Stark’s signature to be.

I smiled every time I looked at it.

And, oh yea, the press conference. That happened. 

Almost shot for shot really. 

Coulson was there, behind the scenes. He’d handed Tony the cards and everything. If there’d been a difference at all it was that Tony seemed to give the cover story a good deal more consideration in this timeline. So much, actually, that I was briefly concerned he might stick to it. 

Which, honestly, would have been a disaster. 

Instead, I got to stand by his side, ever the devoted woman, as he stood up in front of hundreds of members of the press and declared himself the first superhero the world had ever seen.

_‘I am Iron Man’_

I swear I got chills. 

Though that may have been less from the actual words and more from the way Tony turned to me afterwards and just…. _smiled,_ like it was important I was there.

Like somehow _I_ had made this happen. 

Like somehow I mattered.

It was kind of a good feeling, really. A girl could get used to it. 

………

So let’s try to make sure that I don’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the name of the series is now 'Completely out of Hand' and I'd like to rename this part of the story. 
> 
> If anyone has suggestions they are totally welcome. Lemme know what you think. <3
> 
> Also the rating will be going up next time. I don't know if anyone here has read my Dragon Age stuff but boy do I love to write smut....I can only hold myself back for so long.

**Author's Note:**

> The marvel timeline has been consulted for some of the dates in this fic, but they have been completely disregarded or reshuffled if they did not suit my needs or if I had a passing whim. You have been warned, complaints will be lit on fire.
> 
> Have fun. :)


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